Kids Now – Early Childhood Initiative Statement

Kentucky HB 706, which became law in 2000, is a comprehensive Act that: • Establishes an Early Childhood Development Authority in the office of the governor to manage expenditures of an Early Childhood Development Fund; • Requires the authority to develop a state plan for funding priorities and programs; • Creates Community Early Childhood Councils for service areas designated by the authority; • Requires the councils to be established by local child-care resource and referral agencies and family resource centers; • Creates an Early Childhood Business Council and an Early Childhood Professional Development Council; • Requires a vision examination by the state board of education for all students upon admission to public schools; • Amends state law to replace the definitions of “high-risk infant” and “hearing risk certificate” with “auditory screening report” and “infant at high risk of hearing loss;” • Adds auditory screening indicating a hearing loss as an indicator of hearing risk; • Requires the state Commission for Children with Special Health Care Needs to conduct hearing evaluations, contact parents, make referrals to the state early intervention system point of entry, and forward reports of evaluations; • Requires hospitals to provide an auditory screening for all infants and forward an auditory screening report to parents, the attending physician and the commission for children with special needs; • Establishes a Health Access Nurturing Development Services (HANDS) Program as a voluntary statewide home visitation program; • Establishes a scholarship program for child-care workers to obtain early childhood credentials; • Establishes a program of monetary incentives and merit awards for child-care programs; • Establishes a voluntary quality-based graduated child-care rating system; • Expands the Healthy Start In Child Care Program; • Establishes technical assistance positions dedicated to child care; • Requires the state inspector general to issue a statement of deficiency and time frame for corrections for child day-care center violations; • Permits child-care centers to appeal adverse license or penalty actions; • Prohibits employment of violent offenders and people found to have abused or neglected a child in day-care centers; • Adds minimum requirements for directors of child day-care centers; • Adds minimum requirements for family child-care certification; • Requires a target license surveyor ratio of 1 to 50 child-care facilities; • Requires training for license surveyors; • Requires improved monitoring of unregulated providers receiving child-care subsidies; • Establishes penalties for child-care subsidy violations; • Prohibits child-care providers to be or employ people who are convicted of sex crimes or violent crimes, or people who have been found to have abused or neglected a child; and • Adds penalties for child-care providers or employers.