The Pennsylvania Better Baby Care Coalition (PA-BBCC) has created three workgroups to address home-based infant/toddler child care, the role of higher education in infant/toddler child care, and special needs and infant/toddler child care. Additional workgroups that address public education and community recognition, licensing, and mental health will be established in spring 2005.

The Home-Based Child Care Workgroup is developing policy recommendations to improve infant/toddler care in regulated home-based settings and relative/neighbor care by examining:

• Infant/toddler licensing regulations and inspection practices in home-based settings.
• Utilization of home-based providers of professional development and training opportunities;
• Family child care networks and other systems of support for home-based providers.
• Strengthening standards and policies for kith and kin care.

The Higher Education Workgroup is examining the system of instruction and certification for infant/toddler teachers in two- and four-year programs by:

• Identifying strategies to improve articulation between certificate, two- and four-year programs
• Reviewing infant/toddler requirements in degree programs
• Reviewing model programs in other states to determine best practices

The Children with Special Needs Workgroup is identifying policies to improve the ability of programs to provide quality care to children with a wide variety of emotional and physical challenges by:

• Identifying best practices utilized in other states to address physical and mental health consultation.
• Promoting inclusion of children with special needs in child care programs.

The need for quality in infant/toddler child care is being driven, in part, by the return of women to the workforce:

• Nationwide, 61 percent of mothers with children under age 3 were employed in 2000, compared to 34 percent in 1975.
• 72 percent of infants experience regular, non-parental child care during the first year of life. Most enter child care before four months of age, for an average of 28 hours a week.
• In Pennsylvania, 62 percent of women with children under age 3 are in the labor force.
• Nearly two Pennsylvania infants and toddlers out of three have all available parents - single parent or married couple - in the labor force.