First Steps Childcare News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Utah lawmakers are considering a proposal to boost the number of children allowed in unlicensed day care facilities.

Child advocates across Connecticut are imploring Gov. Ned Lamont to increase state funding for subsidized preschool and child care slots. It would offset the impacts of a new law, which requires children to be five years old before Sept. ...

Children of color and from low-income families in Ohio and across the nation are not only exposed to more dangerous toxic chemicals including lead, tailpipe and other air pollution, plastics and pesticides; they also experience disproportionate harm to brain development compared to their white and higher income peers, according to a new report. Devon Payne-Sturges, associate professor of environmental health at the University of Maryland and the report's co-author, said five decades of data show poverty exacerbates the effect of pollution. "Studies have found that the combined exper...

For young people with serious behavioral health challenges, a new report showed Pennsylvania's congregate-care settings may be the best option. The report's authors surveyed 20 providers of congregate care, in facilities housing from about a dozen kids to almost 300. Jaclyn Kreshock, director of children's behavioral health services for the Pennsylvania Council of Children, Youth and Family Services and the report's co-author, said there is a growing movement to transition youth to more community-based and homelike settings. ...

More than 3,000 Ohio children could lose access to Head Start programs under budget cut proposals now being considered by Congress. From birth through age five, Head Start provides low-income families with child care and learning opportunities to equip young children with the tools they need to start Kindergarten. Eva Bloom, director of development for Hocking Athens Perry Community Action, which operates six Head Start centers in those counties, said the cuts not only would hurt families, they would also trigger job losses in a rural part of the state lacking options for living wage employm...