1. Short title This Act may be cited as the Children First Act of 2017 . 2. Purposes The purposes of this Act are— (1) to provide funding to ensure that the families that have infants and toddlers, that have a family income of not more than 200 percent of the applicable Federal poverty guideline, and that need child care have access to high-quality infant and toddler child care by the end of fiscal year 2028, in order to promote family economic security and parental employment, to support parents in balancing work and family obligations, and to promote children’s health, early care, and learning; (2) to provide sufficient funding to ensure that both families and child care providers have the resources they need to support high-quality early care and learning for infants and toddlers; (3) to ensure that provider payment rates, for infant and toddler child care providers, are set at a level high enough to support high-quality child care for infants and toddlers, including infants and toddlers with disabilities; (4) to assist eligible infant and toddler child care providers in improving the quality of their programs— (A) by strengthening the skills, competencies, and compensation of the workforce of those providers, in a manner aligned with the report entitled Transforming the Workforce for Children Birth Through Age 8: A Unifying Foundation , issued by the National Academy of Sciences in April 2015; and (B) by helping those providers ensure that children receive the comprehensive services they need, by coordinating activities with other community service providers