Early Childhood Providers

Poverty

In your work with young children and their families, you know that poverty is the greatest threat to children’s healthy development. Head Start providers and other child care providers see many children whose parents struggle to afford safe housing, and healthy food and know first-hand the consequences for kids.

Docs for Tots believes that families need access to a range of supports in order to be financially secure. As an early childhood practitioner, you are uniquely positioned to help families achieve greater financial security.

You can:

• Link the families you serve with financial supports, including federal, state, and local child care tax credits and child care subsidies
• Teach financial literacy to both caregivers and directly to children as part of your work
• Identify the needs of individual families and build partnerships with legal services and financial counseling partners to support their needs
• Be a strong advocate for family leave insurance, the Earned Income Tax Credit and other policies and investments that get to the root causes of poverty
• Engage business leaders in the early childhood dialogue
• Tell your stories—you are in the business of economic development: there is no greater investment in our nation’s economic health than the work that you do!