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Report: Utah needs to 'bridge the gap' to cure child care 'crisis' – St George News stgeorgeutah.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from stgeorgeutah.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
More than 3,000 Ohio children could lose access to Head Start programs under budget cut proposals now being considered by Congress. From birth through age five, Head Start provides low-income families with child care and learning opportunities to equip young children with the tools they need to start Kindergarten. Eva Bloom, director of development for Hocking Athens Perry Community Action, which operates six Head Start centers in those counties, said the cuts not only would hurt families, they would also trigger job losses in a rural part of the state lacking options for living wage employment. . ....
Children of color and from low-income families in Colorado and across the nation are not only exposed to more dangerous toxic chemicals - including lead, tailpipe and other air pollution, plastics and pesticides - they also experience disproportionate harm to brain development compared to their white and higher income peers, according to a new report. Co-author Devon Payne-Sturges - an associate professor at the University of Maryland - said five decades of data shows that poverty exacerbates these impacts. "Studies have found that the combined experience, say, of exposure to lead in the environment - and being from an impoverished community, or a low-income family," said Payne-Sturges, "actually worsened the negative cognitive impacts." Americans of all ages are exposed to some level of toxins in the air, water and soil, but children are especially vulnerable to exposures that can make it harder for them to thrive as adults. " . ....
A new report found licensed child care programs in Utah are only able to serve about 36% of all children younger than 6 whose parents are working. The Voice for Utah Children report aimed to provide policymakers and the public with an understanding of what is called "the urgent need for child care reform." Mike Wade, owner of First Steps Childcare and Preschool in Salt Lake City, said he views the child care sector as being "stuck somewhere between the private sector and the social service sector." Wade considers child care an essential service, especially for mothers who want to work. "With the cost of child care, I am very empathetic to the general public because it is so expensive," Wade explained. " . ....