Georgia’s 2026 Legislative Session begins today. It’s a 40-day marathon for advocacy organizations like GEEARS—a chance to double down on our “asks” as bills that impact Georgia’s youngest children make their way through committees, debates, Crossover Day, and hopefully, to the governor’s desk to be signed into law.
We’ll approach this session, as we do every January, with our Policy Agenda, which we’ll share with every legislator in the General Assembly, as well as members of Georgia’s executive branch. The agenda is organized into six categories that span the breadth of young children’s needs, from access to high-quality early care and education to healthcare and paid leave for babies and their parents to support for families’ financial wellbeing.
Many of 2026’s asks are highly specific and shaped by some very current challenges:
- Rapid-fire shifts in federal early childhood policies and funding
- Growing rates of Georgia families with young children living in poverty and experiencing homelessness
- A decreased percentage of Georgia’s infants and toddlers who’ve received the recommended 7-vaccine series by 35 months
- Child care costs that, for Georgia infants, exceed the price of in-state college tuition, paired with provider wages that are among the lowest in the country
- Economic challenges that leave very few families untouched
This year’s stakes, in other words, are high. Our policy agenda, accordingly, is jam-packed. But here are a few of our top priorities:
Increase Access to Childcare and Parent Services (CAPS) Scholarships
Only an estimated seven percent of children from income-eligible working families receive CAPS subsidies, allowing their children to attend high-quality child care programs and enabling their parents or caregivers to participate in the workforce. In 2023, due to a temporary pandemic-era bump in federal funding, the most ever Georgia children (72,000) received CAPS subsidies.
GEEARS urges our lawmakers to substantially increase state investment in CAPS to improve access, as many other states have done.
Create a Dedicated Capital Improvement Grant Program for Child Care Facilities
Child care programs striving to provide high-quality early learning must meet many requirements—excellent teachers, nutritious meals and snacks, literacy-rich teaching materials. An often-overlooked essential is child care facilities—the buildings and outdoor spaces in which students learn, play, eat, and nap. Educators and students need safe, well-functioning spaces tailored to the unique needs of babies and young children, including students who require in-school therapies or accessibility for their disabilities. Given their low profit margins, most providers struggle to make the capital improvements they need with their own funds.
Georgia should invest in our collective future by establishing a grant program to fund child care facility construction and improvements.
Continue Expanding Access to Home Visiting
Built upon decades of scientific research, home visiting has been shown to help prevent prematurity, low birthweight, infant mortality, and child maltreatment. Home visiting connects families to vital resources and is an incredibly cost-efficient way to ensure parents and their babies get the care they need, perhaps mitigating the need for future interventions.
GEEARS urges our state to continue expanding the DPH Home Visiting Program statewide, create a credential for community health workers, who often work as home visitors, and use Medicaid funds to reimburse home visiting services.
Ensure Uninterrupted Access to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) by Covering the State’s Share of Administrative Costs
According to the National Institutes of Health, food insecurity can lead to myriad consequences for young children, from worse overall health to developmental delays to a decline in social-emotional and cognitive functioning. So, it’s beyond alarming that last year, almost a quarter of Georgia’s youngest children were living in households in which access to that nutrition was uncertain or altogether out of reach.
Adding to this crisis is a recent federal mandate that requires states to increase their share of SNAP administrative costs from 50% to 75% to maintain full federal support and avoid financial penalties.
To comply with this new rule and safeguard the integrity of SNAP, which serves 650,000 Georgia children, including 201,000 under age six, Georgia must allocate an additional $50 million in state funding for SNAP administrative operations. Without this investment, the state risks a reduction in federal SNAP funding and disruptions for Georgia families, ultimately leaving children hungry.
Given the rapidly changing federal landscape when it comes to early childhood policies and funding streams, our state advocacy efforts are more important than ever. State governments have immense power to shape, in a nuanced and targeted way, the lives of their constituents. For Georgia, whose unrestricted $9 billion budget surplus could make life more livable for families with young children, this is doubly true.
You can use our policy agenda to learn about policies that matter to your family and to help you craft talking points when you call or write to your legislators.
Or, if you’d like the chance to meet your elected officials in person, you could join GEEARS at Strolling Thunder at the Georgia Capitol on January 29th. We’ll prepare you for your legislator meetings, then shepherd you (along with your little ones!) through a fun, family-oriented day of advocacy under the Gold Dome. To register, click here.
This is sponsored content.
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