In 2002 I wrote an article called “The Great Placebo” that postulated our common perspective of “talk about anything but do nothing.” Regrettably this is what has happened to discussions of safe, sanitary, and developmentally appropriate space for children to grow over the past twenty years. Economic Impact of Early Care and Education, Step Up to Quality, School Readiness Solutions Group, Reggio Emilia approach, and the list goes on, have talked about the importance and integration of developmentally appropriate facilities in the early lives of children. But, that talking has resulted in zero resources.

Yesterday I met with a group of educators called the Futures Group that thinks and acts around the issues of change in early care and education, and I heard the same frustration yet again. Of course facilities are important, but there are so many important issues that call for a limited set of resources and facilities drops to the bottom of the list. I shared with them one of the only organizations that I know of that is nationally advocating for resources focused on child care space.

The National Childrens Facilities Network (NCFN) is a coalition of nonprofit financial and technical assistance intermediaries involved in planning, developing, and financing facilities for low-income early care and education programs. The Network’s purpose is to share information on child care facilities issues, initiate legislation and regulations affecting low-income early care and education facilities and develop and support various financing strategies and programs.

With the urging of NCFN, Representative Carolyn McCarthy (NY) has introduced H.R. 1685 (Child Care Facilities Financing Act of 2009) into the House of Representatives, and Senators Robert Casey (PA) and Blanche Lincoln (AR) have introduced a companion bill S. 1002 into the Senate. These bills call for a $250 million five year investment to the financing of child care facilities nationally. Though this concept has a long way to go before it becomes reality, it is one of the only bright spots in the discussion of space for children to grow that fading memory can recall.