Dan Coats: “let me state that I share the goal of seeking ways to provide quality child care. This is something that I have…”

“let me state that I share the goal of seeking ways to provide quality child care. This is something that I have supported, have worked on with the Senators. Clearly, as we are looking particularly at welfare reform, we are going to have increasing need for child care. We all want that to be quality child care. The goal that I had when we worked on the ABC bill several years ago was to make sure that the options available to parents for child care were not limited in any particular way. I was concerned about certification requirements. I was concerned about quality standard requirements because, clearly, at that time, and it is still the case today, the choice of the majority of parents relative to child care for their children is not a child care center but taking care of that child in the home, often by a neighbor, by a friend, by a relative, placing their child in a family child care situation, whether it is a church or a home or some other entity. Several Senators on this floor have talked in the welfare debate about training welfare mothers in projects or allowing them to be child care providers as other people under welfare will be seeking work. All that makes a great deal of sense.”