A Roadmap for Early Head Start-Child Care Partnerships

“Building Supply, Enhancing Quality, and Advancing Equity: The Early Head Start-Child Care Partnership Series” is a new set of briefs published by the Bipartisan Policy Center, in partnership with the Children’s Equity Project and Start Early.

Early Head Start-Child Care Partnerships, or EHS-CCPs, bring the holistic Early Head Start model of child development and early learning into more center- and home-based child care settings through federal child care assistance subsidies.

The series highlights the promising work of the EHS-CCPs to date, particularly related to pandemic recovery and stabilization. States can play many roles in establishing and expanding their own EHS-CCPs, including using Preschool Development Grant Birth to Five funding and aligning CCDF quality funding with supports to implement the Early Head Start model.

The series emphasizes the role of the EHS-CCPs in:

• pandemic recovery
• workforce stabilization
• expanding access to early learning for infants and toddlers
• vision, hearing and developmental screenings
• connections for families: including connections to prenatal care and economic, education, housing, and health supports
• coaching and access to credentials and higher levels of education for the workforce

In some states the EHS-CCPs have already prompted important policy changes that align standards across these two programs, reducing burdens for communities and providers.