How Can We Improve Child Care Safety in the United States Research Paper

How Can We Improve Child Care Safety in the United States - Research Paper Example As a result, children spend more time outside home rather than with their parents. Most of the child care service providers in the US operate under unlicensed and unchecked contexts where the caregivers often lack formal training in the discipline. Since these services are more convenient and less expensive for the parents, they prefer sending their children to neighborhood childcare centers. There have been many well documented cases of children getting injured while in day care centers including falls, poisoning, drowning, electric shock, and so on (Runyan and Gray et al., 1991). A large number of children attend organized group child care and a significant number of them get injuries while in the day care. Hence, the safety of children in child care has become a public health concern. After the instance of child care issues and safety concerns, several legislative efforts have been made. Although no formal federal regulations existed previously except for a few centers, regulation s and licensing procedures now exist to provide a standard for child care center and their safety. Several bodies of pediatricians and other social workers exist that work to improve the safety and standards of child care. ... egivers therefore they must be trained in order to educate and aid healthy growth of children (â€Å"Stepping Stones to Caring for Our Children†, 2013). Advocacy Efforts Several legislative efforts were made since the documentation of child care injuries and diseases in day care centers. Now child care laws and licensing regulations and standards exist. These provide specific rules and requirements for quality standards and licensing of child care centers. Each state has a different rule or procedure for child care even though most of these regulations coincide. The government of US has defined a broad set of disease and injury prevention improvements, medication requirements, and so on, as a general policy. The US government also raises child care awareness among people, aids research and publication in the field, and funds the training of child care professionals (Office of Child Care, 2013). Although the US government has been keen on financing early child care and developm ent, several public notions has inhibited the thoughtful federal government gesture. Many people believe that raising their own child is a matter between the parents and the child and therefore should involve no government intervention. Also, a public view which supports only mother care is against the federal financing of child care. Such attitudes towards government financing of child care has obstructed the consistency of federal financing. However, such values have shown a decline particularly after the increase of employed women in the US workforce (Cohen, 1996). Initially, only state governments enforced child care laws except a few federally regulated child care centers (Runyan and Gray et al., 1991). Now, the US government has its own separate Office for Child Care that provides guidelines