This brief is an effort to explore the meaning of the word "curriculum" when applied to working with infants and toddlers. The idea for the brief emerged from the early childhood community--specifically two groups of applied researchers funded by the Administration for Children and Families, INQUIRE and NITR. [See insert box on page 12…

High quality early learning experiences can promote young children's development and help to reduce achievement gaps between children from low-income families and children from more affluent families. Early care and education programs also promote parents' ability to support their children's learning, and allow parents to work or go to school.…

Home-based child care accounts for a significant share of the child care supply in the United States, especially for infants and toddlers. A synthesis of the home-based care research literature and information about recent home-based care quality initiatives points to a critical need for more systematic efforts to develop and test quality…

Early Head Start (EHS) is a comprehensive program providing intensive services from before birth to age 3 to promote improved outcomes in child, family, staff, and community development. The third of a 3-volume series designed to share the experiences of the 17 EHS programs participating in the Early Head Start National Research and Evaluation…

To address the increasing child care needs of low-income families in the wake of welfare reform, federal and state governments have responded with increased funding for child care and for initiatives to improve quality. Some of these initiatives have been designed specifically to address the unique challenges of infant-toddler care. This report…

The high prevalence of kith and kin child care for infants and toddlers, coupled with research evidence suggesting cause for concern about quality in these settings, points to a critical need for policies and programs to support kith and kin caregivers in providing quality care. A number of state and local agencies are exploring strategies for…

This report describes what has been learned in the first year of a study to examine collaborative community initiatives designed to improve low-income families' access to good-quality infant-toddler child care; the report examines the Early Head Start/child care partnerships in detail and identifies emerging themes to consider in more depth as the…

Early Head Start began with 68 programs in 1995 and today, almost 650 programs serve some 55,000 low-income families with infants and toddlers. This two-generation program provides high-quality child and family development services, a focus on staff development, and a commitment to community partnerships. A rigorous national evaluation, including…

In 1994, the Secretary's Advisory Committee on Services for Families with Infants and Toddlers set forth a vision for Early Head Start programs in declaring that all child care settings used by Early Head Start families, whether or not the program provides the care directly, must meet the high standards of quality embodied in the Head Start…

In summer 2004, the Head Start Bureau funded 24 Early Head Start programs to implement the Enhanced Home Visiting Pilot Project, an initiative designed to support the quality of care that kith and kin caregivers provide to infants and toddlers enrolled in home-based Early Head Start programs. At the same time, an evaluation of these pilot programs…

Research shows that home visitation programs targeted at the developmental needs of children can foster their well-being. The Enhanced Home Visiting Pilot Project, funded by the Head Start Bureau in 2004, supports the quality of care that kith and kin caregivers provide to infants and toddlers enrolled in home-based Early Head Start programs.…

Early Head Start (EHS) is a comprehensive, two-generation program providing intensive services from before birth to age 3 to promote improved outcomes in children's development, family development, staff development, and community development. The second of a 3-volume series designed to share the experiences of the 17 EHS programs participating in…

As part of a multi-faceted effort, the National Early Head Start Research and Evaluation project examined the nature and extent of implementation in key program areas and the quality of crucial child development services in 17 research programs funded early in the initiative. Implementation data were collected through three rounds of site visits,…

Early Head Start was designed in 1994 as a 2-generation program to enhance children's development and health, strengthen family and community partnerships, and support the staff delivering new services to low-income families with pregnant women, infants, or toddlers. This document contains the final technical report, appendixes, and local…