Research and Advocacy in Early Child Care and Education: Where Is Social Work?

High quality early child care and education (ECE) programs are well positioned to exert widespread, positive effects in the lives of families with infants and young children. Due to a large percentage of working parents and workforce participation by mothers, and increasing knowledge of the potential benefits of early education, growing numbers of pre-school age children spend many of their hours in non-parental care and/or early learning programs. Almost two-thirds (61%) of children under the age of five are in some form of non-parental care arrangement, including day care centers and preschools as well as home-based care provided by relatives and family child care providers. In addition to the short- and long-term direct benefits of high quality ECE programs on the cognitive and emotional development of young children, access to quality care also supports families’ healthy functioning and economic well-being.

Social workers are not prominently situated within ECE practice, policy, and research. This is despite a growing recognition of the importance of providing ECE services that promote equity and are family-centered, relationship-based, trauma-informed, culturally relevant, and strengths-focused: approaches that are central to the practice of social work. While the importance of ECE cuts across socioeconomic strata, ECE settings may be particularly influential for low-income parents and children, who lag behind in school readiness at kindergarten entry relative to their higher-income counterparts. ECE programs offer opportunities to implement and evaluate dual generation interventions designed to ameliorate the effects of poverty and toxic stress on child development and family functioning. ECE programs also offer an important venue for connecting families with key supports such as early intervention and mental health services. Thus, ECE policies, such as those governing the funding and implementation of Head Start/Early Head Start, public pre-kindergarten, and child care subsidy programs, have deep implications for marginalized, vulnerable families. These are only a few of the implications of ECE that leave us wondering: What is the role of social work in early care and education, and where are the social work researchers?

The purpose of this roundtable on the current state of social work research in ECE is to (a) identify strengths, gaps, and opportunities, (b) raise awareness and stimulate thinking regarding social workers’ roles in ECE practice and policy, and (c) encourage collaboration across systems, ECE programs, and levels of social work practice. Panelists will share data from their current research projects on ECE policy, advocacy, workforce development, secondary data analysis, and intervention. Panelists will also focus on challenges and opportunities for data collection and secondary data analysis using publically available ECE data such as the newly released data from the National Survey of Early Care and Education, Baby FACES, and the Survey of Income and Program Participation. Participants will be encouraged to share their work and experiences in ECE research. A primary aim of the roundtable is to stimulate discussion that will culminate in increased collaboration and a shared agenda for social work research and advocacy related to early care and education.