With only a month until the beginning of Kentucky’s legislative session, it is essential for child advocates to be up-to-date on the topics most likely to impact children and families in 2026.  The General Assembly will undoubtedly be discussing topics like food insecurity, children experiencing homelessness, and Kentucky children having access to appropriate health care – and the Blueprint for Kentucky’s Children has a number of state policy and budget priorities that will impact kids across the Commonwealth.  

As Kentucky families work to be more independent, the topic of affordable and accessible child care is at the forefront of many other family policies. When families have access to quality child care, the adults in the home can go to work knowing that their children are safe and healthy, but obtaining child care for all working families is still a challenge throughout the Commonwealth.  

During the past year, the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce facilitated a collaborative group of professionals from throughout the state that had specific interests in Kentucky’s child care resources. These professionals included local business leaders, higher education representatives, education specialists, community leaders, and child advocates that met regularly to discuss what the most pressing child care challenges are for Kentucky families.  Despite diverse backgrounds and opinions, the group of forty professionals were able to come up with a collaborative list of recommendations, including:

  • Utilizing a cost-model system within Kentucky’s child care subsidy system to account for the true cost of care instead of the maximum amount that parents can pay
  • Using more accurate measures to monitor the supply and demand of child care throughout the commonwealth
  • Finding ways for child care programs to maintain necessary health and safety requirements while still reducing red tape associated with child care licensing
  • Implementing the Certified Child Care Communities program from House Bill 561 (2024)
  • Updating the Employee Child Care Assistance Partnership Program (ECCAP) to run more efficiently and serve more families
  • Providing more supports to children with disabilities in child care settings – a Blueprint for Kentucky’s Children policy priority 

The Chamber Collaborative will also be continuing to ask for the historic funding implemented in the 2024 state budget session that allowed for higher levels of child care subsidy and innovative programs like the subsidy income exemption program that provides free enrollment  for child care providers that work in Kentucky’s licensed child care centers.

While the Chamber Collaborative specifically focused on private child care providers, the Governor’s Office has also been thinking about early childhood education programs.  The newly established “Pre-K for All” office has been visiting communities throughout the state to receive feedback and form a plan to create universal pre-kindergarten programs for all 4-year-olds in Kentucky.  The Pre-K for All advisory committee as a whole focused mostly on the public preschool system, although discussions did include Head Start and private child care.  The advisory committee also released a report with their recommendations, including: 

  • Kentucky should expand its current public school preschool program
  • Kentucky should emphasize quality when expanding quality early childhood education
  • Kentucky should utilize services through public school preschool programs, Head Start, and private child care programs

All of these recommendations place a spotlight on the need for quality early childhood education in Kentucky, and despite a number of unanswered questions about the eligibility and design, it is likely that there will be initial legislation filed in 2026 to move towards Pre-K for All. 

Although the Chamber Collaborative recommendations and the Pre-K for All recommendations will likely be among  the main points of child care discussions  during this legislative session, there are several other topics like Nature-Based Preschool and expansion of family child care homes in Kentucky that will also receive some attention. Follow along on Kentucky Youth Advocates’ blog and Bill Tracker during the legislative session to see how these issues progress.