Largest influx of Child Care Development funds in history available for school-age care

The Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG)  provides funding for low-income families in the workforce to have access to quality, accessible child care for their children ages 0-13.

The American Rescue Plan (ARP), in recognition of the important role of child care for American families, provided $39 billion of funding support for the CCDBG program. This funding comes in addition to the $5.9 billion appropriated for the program for FY 2021.

The $39 billion investment (find you state allocation here) in the ARP is divided into two funding streams:

• $14.990 billion for additional CCDF funds to be obligated by states in fiscal years 2021 through 2023. These funds are available to any CCDF eligible provider and providers licensed, regulated or registered by the state. This would include CCDF license exempt providers, and registered school-age programs. Funds must be obligated by September 2023 and liquidated by September 2024¹.
• $23.975 billion for a child care stabilization fund. Up to 10% of the stabilization fund can be reserved by the state lead agency for areas such as technical assistance and increasing the supply of child care. The remaining 90% will be subgranted to CCDF eligible programs either operating when submitting the grant application or having closed due to the COVID health emergency. Grants can be used to pay staff (including owners salaries), rent, health and safety practices for COVID, any goods and services needed to maintain operations, mental health supports for children or staff, and can be used to reimburse prior expenses incurred due to COVID.

The legislation comes at an especially opportune time as states are currently undertaking their planning process for 2022-2024 CCDBG implementation. The planning process must include coordination with statewide afterschool networks and provides a great opportunity to discuss the importance of state child care plans that fully consider the needs of children along the developmental continuum from infancy to age 13.

Recent research by Deborah Vandell at the University of California Irvine reinforces how important sustained investments across the ages served programs such as CCDBG can be. Vandell found that investments in early care were sustained by participation in quality afterschool programs and that the effect sizes of each early care and afterschool equivalent and cumulative.

Points of particular importance in state plans and in relief dollars may include school-age appropriate standards, professional development, licensing, quality systems, and ensuring accessibility of school-age center based care for parents who need care during the year and/or over the summer. Depending on the state, some COVID relief dollars have been released to licensed-only programs which limits states that have not adopted school-age standards and operate many school-age and summer camp programs as license exempt from accessing these important funds.

To inquire how the state is planning to spend the CCDBG dollars including the increases for COVID rescue and to learn more about participation in the state planning process, reach out to your state administrative agency. The Afterschool Alliance has a webpage with some additional information and resources surrounding these joint opportunities of the plan and rescue funding. We also recommend that programs, parents, and all interested advocates connect with your statewide afterschool network to support their work.