In Recognition of Indigenous People’s Day

Blog October 11, 2021

The BUILD Initiative joins 17 states and the District of Columbia, as well as many cities, in recognition of the 60 million Native peoples who inhabited the Americas before Columbus’s arrival and pays homage to Native Americans in the US and its territories.

Relationship-Based Supports for Home-Based Child Care: What to Embrace and What to Avoid

Blog September 29, 2021

This blog explores the hallmarks of effective relationship-based supports for family child care educators. It is written with input from Juliet Bromer, Erikson Institute; Danielle Caldwell, a home-based child care educator in North Carolina; and Colette Masty, a Michigan quality support provider with Family, Friend, and Neighbor Care and license-exempt providers.

Before, During, and After COVID-19: What We can Learn from Illinois Head Start’s Family Engagement and Social-Emotional Learning Practices

Blog August 17, 2021

Through a longitudinal, qualitative study with 20 Illinois-based Head Start/Early Head Start directors, the author of this blog provides a look into the novel and creative approaches that can inform ECE practice as we seek to recreate a new and improved “normal” in a post-pandemic world. Educators, administrators, and policymakers are provided with several key learnings that they can apply in their engagement of families of young children and provision of social-emotional support.

The Potential—and Pitfalls—of Telehealth

Blog June 16, 2021

COVID-19 revealed that underserved families could access vital early childhood system resources virtually through the Internet and other forms of electronic communication. But realizing the potential of virtual service delivery requires policy makers to confront inequities faced by marginalized communities and families lacking access to broadband internet, computers, tablets, and smartphones.

The Need For Trauma-Informed Services And Policies In Early Care And Education: A Webinar Series

Blog June 16, 2021

With funding from the Irving Harris Foundation, the BUILD Initiative organized series of webinars and blogs in partnership with the Center for Law and Social Policy focused on how recent changes in immigration policy are presenting new and intense challenges to infants, toddlers, preschoolers and their families, and the teachers and programs that work with them.

It’s Time: The Steady Growth of QRIS and the ECE System

Blog June 16, 2021

This profile of Anne Walsh Mitchell, a long-time leader in the early childhood education field and a past-president of the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC), upon her retirement offers her reflections on how the emergence of state Quality Rating and Improvement Systems continue to impact the work of the early care and education system.

Six Opportunities to Advance Equity in the ARPA Child Care Stabilization Grant Guidance

Blog May 18, 2021

The grant guidance for the American Rescue Plan Act offers strategies for designing stabilization grant programs that can begin to address systemic inequities built into the child care industry over centuries and rooted in historic reliance on the undervalued work of Black, Latinx, and other women of color. This article, prepared by the Center for Law and Social Policy, offers are six important opportunities states should consider as they use ARPA funds to meet the field’s immediate relief needs.

Supporting Home-Based Child Care Options: Leaders Share Solutions

Blog April 14, 2021

Home-based child care meets the needs of families who face the greatest barriers to accessing care, including families of color, those with infants and toddlers, many who work nontraditional hours, and parents who want services respectful of their culture and language. This webinar, part of BUILD’s ongoing series on Home-Based Child Care, makes the case for increased investment and support for Family Child Care and Family, Friend and Neighbor Care with nationally recognized leaders in the field.

A Project Years in the Making: Early Childhood and Child Welfare Working Together to Reach The Most Vulnerable Children In Time

Blog March 5, 2021

This blog describes the urgent need for early childhood and child welfare to join forces to support vulnerable children and outlines the goals of a BUILD project to create a strategy to develop and enhance the collaboration between the child welfare and early childhood systems to improve outcomes for young children and their families.

Three Steps State Child Care Agencies Can Take to Support an Equitable Economic Recovery

Blog March 4, 2021

During the COVID-19 pandemic, parents have had to balance working or seeking work, protecting their own and their children’s health and safety, and managing their children’s education despite child care programs being closed or offering reduced services. For Black and Latino families, these challenges have been more pronounced. This Urban Institute blog outlines three immediate ways policymakers can use the child care funds allocated in the recent relief packages to more equitably support families with young children.