Child care for infants and toddlers: Where in the world are we going?

In this article we address some of the issues around the provision of alternative care (in particular formal centre-based child care) for infants and toddlers. We discuss why these services are under-valued (and thus under-resourced). Evidence from the research literature on the outcomes for those children attending child care is reviewed and a new explanation for observed outcomes is presented. We use our own research to present the case for high quality child care for toddlers, and an explanation as to what that means in terms of service delivery.