NURTURING AND RESPONSIVE CHILD CARE IN SAFE SETTINGS

The developing brain of a young child depends on secure attachments with caregivers. Consistent, appropriate, nurturing, and positive interactions, so fundamental to shaping brain architecture, are just as important when children are in child care as when they are at home with their parents. Ensuring nurturing and responsive child care in safe settings is foundational to building a prenatal-to-3 system of care.

It is critical that young children receive quality care and that their caregivers have the resources they need to provide that care—and yet currently no outcome that is measured nationally provides sufficient insight into states’ most effective means of achieving this goal. Two outcome measures are used to illustrate nurturing and responsive child care in safe settings:

• Participation in quality rating and improvement systems and
• Access to Early Head Start

Based on comprehensive reviews of the most rigorous evidence available, the Prenatal-to-3 Policy Impact Center identified 12 effective solutions that foster the nurturing environments infants and toddlers need. Two strategies have demonstrated effectiveness at promoting nurturing and responsive child care in safe settings.