A guide to improving participation in your state’s child care subsidy system

“With funding from the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF), states, territories, and tribes help families with low incomes pay for child care so parents can work or attend school. However, some families can struggle to participate in the child care subsidy system when its policies and procedures don’t recognize their needs. The child care providers that these families rely on can also face challenges participating in the system if it isn’t designed to support them.

This five-part guide helps those working to improve state child care subsidy systems identify the challenges families and providers face when trying to participate in the subsidy system and actionable steps to address these challenges.

Why This Matters

How a state designs its child care subsidy system policies and procedures can affect whether and which families and providers are able to participate in it. For example, families who live in rural areas and don’t have internet access may struggle to complete an application for the program if it’s only available online. Parents who have low literacy levels may struggle to apply for the program if its written materials are not easily understood.

[Related: Head Start is turning 60. The federal child care program may not make it to 61]

In addition, whether a family can access child care that meets their needs depends on which providers can participate in a state’s subsidy system. For example, some providers may not want to participate if a state’s payment rates for serving children in the subsidy system do not cover the costs of providing care. In addition, smaller providers that have fewer resources or staff may have a hard time completing long and detailed application forms.

Understanding how families and providers with different characteristics experience your child care subsidy system can help identify ways to improve access to subsidies.

Overview of the Guide

A Guide to Improving Participation in Your State’s Child Care Subsidy System

• • Introduces a set of family characteristics that can affect how families experience subsidy policies and procedures—for example, living in a rural area, lacking internet access, working nontraditional hours, and having a family member with a disability
  • Describes how failing to consider characteristics such as these can unintentionally exclude families or make it harder for them to participate
  • Outlines three steps to take to assess and improve child care subsidy policies and procedures

Review Your Child Care Subsidy System Eligibility Policies for Families

• • Discusses federal CCDF eligibility criteria
  • Explains how adding state-level eligibility policies can affect families’ participation in the subsidy program
  • Offers practical approaches to assess and simplify your state subsidy system’s eligibility policies

Review Your Child Care Subsidy System Procedures for Families

• • Describes how subsidy system procedures can affect families’ participation, including application, reporting, and communication processes; how and where families access the subsidy agency; and how families are treated
  • Offers practical approaches to assess current procedures and ensure they support families’ participation in the program

Review Your Child Care Subsidy System Policies and Procedures for Providers

• • Describes what factors may shape providers’ decisions to participate in subsidy programs, including the type of care they provide, their size and administrative capacity, their language, and their reliance on the subsidy system
  • Offers practical approaches to assess subsidy system policies and procedures and ensure they support a range of providers’ participation in the program

Understanding Families and Providers and Your Child Care Subsidy System

• • Describes why it is important to learn more about the characteristics of families and providers the subsidy system aims to serve and how they experience the system
  • Outlines the types of information needed to understand these characteristics and experiences
  • Includes tips on how to gather or find this information.”