Policy Priorities
Together, Colorado’s 35 Early Childhood Councils form a statewide network with deep knowledge of local perspectives. Leaders can rely on the expertise of Councils to ensure policies focus on helping young children enter school ready to learn and achieve their full potential. Annually, ECCLA and Councils develop policy priorities to ensure there is a collective voice on behalf of all Colorado’s young children and their families.
Within these priorities, ECCLA advocates for policy that has bi-partisan support, equitably impacts all communities and counties across the state in alignment with Policy Criteria 4, and directly supports identified policy outcomes.
ECCLA’s Policy Agenda is inclusive of membership perspectives and views but is unique and separate from individual Early Childhood Council’s positions on proposed policy.
We encourage you to find your local Council and connect to engage in policy solutions together.
ECCLA Policy Priorities
Strategic Policy Outcomes:
- Elevate the early childhood workforce through advocacy for policy that positively and equitably impacts recruitment, retention, quality, and competency of early childhood professionals.
- Promote healthy child outcomes through advocacy for policy that supports increased access to screening, referrals, follow-up, and/or consultation.
- Increase the ability of local families to connect to services through advocacy for policies that work to address identified needs and gaps in services across the state.
- Advocate for policies and investment in local and statewide infrastructure that is needed to build and maintain a strong early childhood system that addresses access, equity, affordability, and quality.
Policy Criteria:
- ECCLA will promote and advocate for policies that positively impact the early childhood workforce, especially if those policies would lead to increased investment in recruitment, diversity, retention, quality, and competency across all areas of the workforce.
- ECCLA will advocate for policies that will have a demonstratable impact on increasing access to preventative and developmental screenings, referrals, follow-up, and/or consultation statewide.
- ECCLA will advocate for policies that strengthen families with young children by addressing needs and gaps.
- ECCLA will understand the unique impacts proposed policy will have on all communities and counties across the state including on communities of color, communities with differing home languages, LGBTQ+ communities, undocumented communities, communities with varying population sizes and geographic diversity.
Over the next 12 months:
- ECCLA will advocate for sustainable funding for local early childhood infrastructure. This will include working to ensure local property taxes are available for communities, supporting local taxing opportunities that will fund early childhood services, and ensuring that the state budget has adequate resources for local early childhood infrastructure, including the Early Childhood Council System, Universal Preschool, the Local Coordination Organization system, and quality improvement for early care and education programs.
- ECCLA will advocate for increased resources (minimally an additional $1 million) to Early Childhood Councils to support increased coaching capacity to early care and education programs to meet the growing demand for programs participating in Colorado Shines and/or Universal Preschool.
- ECCLA will promote and advocate for locally implemented resources and support for consultative roles: including infant and early childhood mental health consultants, licensing specialists, health consultants, coaching, mentoring, and other roles that support the quality and capacity of early childhood services.
- ECCLA will advocate that Early Childhood Councils should receive Cost of Living increases equal to the Service Provider Rate increase when included in the state budget, and that the rate increase should be flexible and allow organizations to meet the rising costs of providing existing, statutorily required, services within their local communities.
- ECCLA will advocate that Early Childhood Councils, local Child Care Resource and Referral services, and Local Coordinating Organizations are critical and unique programs in coordinating local early childhood systems and continue to seek clear roles, efficient processes, and nonduplicative uses of funding within duplicative statute mandates between Early Childhood Councils and Local Coordinating Organizations.
- ECCLA will promote and advocate for evidence-based workforce strategies that support recruitment, retention, quality, and competency, including ongoing support for the T.E.A.C.H. Early Childhood Scholarship, apprenticeships, Child Development Associate Credential (CDA), beyond 2026.
- ECCLA will support policy and resources for the Colorado Child Care Assistance Program (CCCAP) and opportunities that expand eligibility, increase funding, and decrease barriers for families, providers, and counties in ensuring all eligible families receive services.
- ECCLA will support policy that strengthens and increases local access to child development and family strengthening services that support the entire state including but not limited to home visiting, Early Intervention, Family Resource Centers, WIC, SNAP, CCCAP, CACFP, and child maltreatment prevention.