This journal issue examines the four key areas for major policy action identified by the Carnegie Task Force in its report, Starting Points: Meeting the Needs of Our Youngest Children. The four areas of policy recommendation are: (1) promoting responsible parenthood, concerned with preventing adolescent pregnancies and unwanted births, teaching about effective parenthood in elementary school years, and developing an explicit national family planning program; (2) guaranteeing quality child care choices, by way of family-based child care and help from corporations for their employees; (3) ensuring good health and protection, through comprehensive primary and preventive care services and violence-free homes and neighborhoods; and (4) mobilizing communities to support young children and their families, with a recommendation to expand Head Start and use it as a model to meet the needs of more low-income families with infants and toddlers. Included in this issue are sidebars on the Union City Day Care Program in New Jersey, the Avance Center in Texas, and the Boston City Hospital's department of pediatrics. Also included is an article on creating a culture of responsibility toward young children, adapted from a speech presented during the conference at which the Carnegie Task Force released its report. (BAC)