The first five years of a child’s life is a time of incredible development. Meeting developmental milestones and having needs met sets a child up for future success. Experiencing poverty, neglect, abuse, or access to fewer/lower quality early education – increase children’s risks of poor health, and decreases school readiness, and these risks can have lifelong impacts.

Michigan’s Children’s priorities in Early Education and Care include:

• • Child care
    • Availability and affordability
    • High-quality learning safety/standards aligned with school readiness that facilitate successful transitions from early care and learning into Kindergarten
  • Early childhood mental health (0-4). Including
    • Access to testing, treatment, and disability support/resources
    • Equipping the early childhood workforce with skills and strategies to attend to the social and emotional development of young children through services like Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation
  • Maternal mental health
  • Home visiting

• Early Childhood Budget Requests from Michigan’s Children
  • Use these child care scholarship and Early On budget request documents to prepare talking points for a call, email, or meeting with your state lawmakers. For extra brownie points, send these documents to your state lawmakers!