Child Care Choices: An Overview of Early Learning and Care Settings

Finding child care that is affordable, safe, and developmentally appropriate is critical for children and families alike. Families also need choices to meet their specific needs.

Children experience both short- and long-term benefits from quality early learning, which sets them up for success as they enter school and beyond. For a majority of families with young children, child care is an economic necessity while they work or attend school. As families navigate their unique circumstances, choice in — and access to — child care settings is imperative.

People may use different phrases — including daycare, early learning, child care, preschool or pre-K — to describe the various settings, programs, and opportunities that support young children, but the commonly made distinction between ‘care’ and ‘education’ in early childhood is a false one.

Children are growing and learning across all settings, regardless of what they are called. Quality early childhood education can occur in any number of settings, including publicly or privately funded classrooms, in-home settings, care provided by trusted individual caregivers and others.

This resource is meant to provide a broad overview of the settings where children go while they are not in the care of their parent(s) or guardian(s) before they enter the traditional K-12 school system. The settings outlined here are not mutually exclusive as families often piece together multiple forms of child care to meet their individual needs.

DownloadWhere Kids Go (761.53 kB)