Engaging Parent and Provider Voice to Examine Equitable Access to Early Childhood Programs and Services
This session was presented during the BUILD 2021 National Conference.
Access to early childhood programs and services goes beyond just measuring the supply, or “open seats” for services in a community. In two briefs, Defining and Measuring Access to High-Quality Early Care and Education: A Guidebook for Policymakers and Researchers and Conceptualizing and Measuring Access to Early Care and Education, Child Trends has introduced and described the Access Framework, a family-centered, multi-dimensional definition of access. From a family-centered perspective, access means that early childhood programs and services are: 1) affordable; 2) meet parents’ needs; 3) support children’s development; and 4) require a reasonable amount of effort to find. Over the past year, Child Trends has been working with a cohort of seven state and community grantees of the Pritzker’s Children’s Initiative to apply the four dimensions of the Access Framework to evaluate access to a variety of programs including: early care and education programs, coordinated intake and referral, home visiting, child welfare, and other programs and services for young children. This cohort is especially working toward developing programs and services that provide equitable access to families from all racial and ethnic backgrounds by applying the Access Framework to consider the access experiences of families from different racial and ethnic groups. In this session we will provide an overview of the four dimensions of the Access Framework, provide examples of how this framework is being used to guide an assessment of equitable access to child care in New Jersey and other states and communities across the nation. We will offer key questions you can use to assess equitable access for specified groups of children and families in your state or community.
Explore More
BUILD23 JEDI Leaders
Fact Sheet November 22, 2023
The document summarizes the work being done by organizations focused on justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion.

Career Pathways
Report November 15, 2023
This brief focuses on the ways that states are using PDG B-5 grant funding to create and sustain career pathways in the early care and education field. “Career pathways” are broadly defined here, referring to a wide range of activities that support prospective and current early educators in advancing in the profession. States’ initiatives span an early educator’s complete career trajectory, from strategies to recruit new candidates into the profession to initiatives that create new specializations for educators who want to propel their careers further.

Financing Highlights
Report November 1, 2023
PDG B-5 Planning and Renewal Grants are being used by states across a wide range of content areas in the early childhood care and education system, and in a variety of ways. The federal funding provides a systems framework and seeks to offer flexibility within that framework. States are using the federal funding to build capacity, create infrastructure, provide direct services, and pilot work that is new for them. This work is occurring within a broad framework provided by the federal government. This brief explores the choices that PDG B-5 grantees plan for the use of the financing provided, which has impact on the overall ECCE systems that they are building and implementing. Within PDG B-5, states had to demonstrate how they would allocate the financial resources available across required and discretionary activity categories. We can learn about their priorities from a look at the choices that they made.