Barriers Undermining Access to Early Care and Education Programs
What do you remember before the age of five? Probably not much. This is likely due to a phenomenon psychologists have dubbed “childhood amnesia,” which prevents most adults from having any memories of the first three or four years of their lives. Yet those years – the first five years of life in fact – have a seismic impact on our long-term social, cognitive, emotional, and physical development. In response, policymakers across the U.S. have implemented a host of early care and education (ECE) programs to support child and family well-being over the years.
Unfortunately, we have made it far too difficult as a society for families to access these programs. As a result, children across the country are missing out on potentially life-changing opportunities.
At current count, 36 federal programs, complemented by a suite of state and locally funded initiatives, provide a myriad of supports like early care and education, healthcare, and cash or food assistance. Many were created for families with specific risk factors, such as developmental delays or homelessness. Yet, rather than supporting children the way these programs were intended to, their confounding fragmentation can make it impossibly difficult for parents to find, apply for, and enroll in services.
The result: American families are missing out on critical services at a crucial time in their children’s lives.
In our latest report “Lost in the Labyrinth: Helping Parents Navigate Early Care and Education Programs,” the New Practice Lab (based at New America) illustrates the complexity that families face, by diving into the fractured network of programs and funding streams across all 50 states. We scanned publicly available information on early care and education offerings, including state websites, with a focus on the four core program areas that receive the most public funding: child care assistance; Head Start and Early Head Start; state-funded pre-kindergarten; and early intervention and preschool special education.
Our research revealed multiple factors driving a fragmented experience for families. At the top, states offer a wide range of programs to choose between and enroll in, with two-thirds of states offering five or six programs and others states between four and eight, often without enough guidance to help families figure out which ones apply to their situation. Next, families have to contend with varying administrative structures, with as many as four or five agencies playing unique roles in the administration of ECE programs in some states. Finally, families face huge differences in eligibility criteria across programs, an area where states have varying degrees of flexibility.
Confronted by a large menu of programs, multiple agency involvement, and uncertainty about eligibility, it is no surprise that parents or guardians of young children – many of whom are already struggling to keep their heads above water – often simply give up on accessing critical programs designed to support them.
What can be done to make it easier for families to get the help they need?
Agencies already have the power to begin breaking down administrative barriers. Simplifying program information, developing eligibility screening tools, and streamlining application processes would go far in helping parents understand what's available to them and how to get access for their kids. For instance, agencies could collaborate on multi-program eligibility screeners and digital navigation tools with links to individual program applications.
For families who lack internet access or digital devices, agencies would do well to engage with more community-based organizations that can serve as intermediaries, meeting people where they are and acting as trusted messengers to navigate families through the application and enrollment processes.
Many states are also rolling out new initiatives that are successfully improving the experience of families seeking care and education for young children. For example, co-locating programs within consolidated governance structures eases the burden on families and reflects a commitment to effective service delivery for young children. Even states without these consolidated structures can make progress in simplifying access to early care and education program information, and many have.
Our report does not point fingers at any agency, state, or policymaker, nor do we suggest that technical overlays can fully resolve systemic issues related to funding or workforce shortages. Instead, we hope to shine a light on the way dry topics like bureaucracy and administrative burden create real and negative consequences in the lives of our children.
Complexity and fragmentation in the early care and education sector is not isolated to any one state, or even a handful of states. Delivering more effective services for families may well require enhanced funding for our under-resourced care infrastructure, but without improved coordination across multiple funding streams and a wide variety of programs, those funds, and the funds that already exist, are unlikely to yield their full impact.
Accessible, sustained, and meaningful support for early care and education programs is critical to helping families with young children, but so are the ways in which current programs reach the families who need them the most. Until we design the experience around them, we might never lift those barriers.
Erica Meade is the Senior Policy Manager at the New Practice Lab and Sarah Gilliland is a Senior Policy Analyst in the New Practice Lab at New America.
