Access to Infant and Toddler Care and Education: Research and Evaluation

Overview

The Administration for Children and Families (ACF) is soliciting applications for Access to Infant and Toddler Care and Education: Research and Evaluation awards. The early care and education (ECE) landscape has shifted in recent years due to a number of factors, including, but not limited to, increasing state and local investments in public pre-kindergarten, a declining supply of home-based ECE settings, changing ECE workforce qualification or educational requirements, and ECE workforce shortages and provider instability exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. This shifting landscape has implications, including unintended consequences, for access to infant and toddler care and education (i.e., the extent to which families can identify and secure care with reasonable effort, the affordability of care, care that meets parents’ needs, care that supports children’s development).

This opportunity will provide funding to address key research and evaluation questions related to care and education access for infants and toddlers at the national, state, or local level.

Proposed projects can include primary data collection and/or leverage secondary data sources. Proposed projects can use quantitative, qualitative, or mixed-methods data at the national, state or territory, or local level.

Project Goals and Requirements
This opportunity will provide funding for projects that address key research and evaluation questions related to care and education access for infants and toddlers at the national, state, or local level and to disseminate findings from those projects.

The goals of these awards are to:

• Answer key questions to inform policy, program administration, and future research related to infant and toddler care and education access.
• Encourage active communication, networking, and collaboration among those studying access to infant and toddler care and education.

Specifically, these awards will support either:

1. descriptive research studies to document current access, shifts in access over time, or the characteristics of specific policies, practices, or other efforts that may be affecting access; or
2. evaluations to explore the implementation or effects of specific policies, practices, or other efforts that may be affecting access.

Potential research and evaluation projects may examine topics at the national, state, or local level, as they are relevant to access to infant and toddler care and education, including, but not limited to:

• Publicly funded pre-kindergarten policies or practices (e.g., eligibility requirements; delivery system; ages served);
• Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) policies and practices (e.g., eligibility requirements; consumer education activities; strategies for increasing the supply and quality of infant and toddler services including uses of infant and toddler quality set-aside funds, infant and toddler copayment/reimbursement rates to meet demand);
• Shifts in minimum preservice qualification or educational requirements for the infant and toddler care and education workforce or shifts for the care and education workforce serving preschool-aged children that may have implications for infant and toddler access;•Efforts to improve the supply of home-based providers serving infants and toddlers to meet demand;
• Incentives or initiatives to keep existing or expand their infant and toddler slots (e.g., set-asides or funds to support infant and toddler slots);
• Provisions of the 2024 CCDF Final Rule, Improving Child Care Access, Affordability, and Stability in the Child Care and Development Fund (e.g., implementation of provisions related to eligibility and enrollment processes, family co-payment policies, or use of grants and contracts for direct services for infants and toddlers);
• Disparities or inequities in access for infants and toddlers from underserved or marginalized communities and/or “equal access” provisions of CCDF that aim to ensure eligible children have access to child care services that are comparable to services for children whose parents are not eligible; or
• Other uses of federal, state, and/or local funds to improve access to infant and toddler care and education.

Recipients must align their proposed measurement of access with at least one of the dimensions of access presented above (i.e., the extent to which families are able to secure care with reasonable effort, the affordability of care, care that meets parents’ needs, or care that supports children’s development).

Recipients will conduct primary data collection and/or leverage secondary data sources. Potential secondary data sources may include, but are not limited to:

• State or local administrative data (e.g., licensing, Child Care Resource & Referral, Quality Rating and Improvement System, workforce registry, child care subsidy system, pre-kindergarten program);
• National administrative data (e.g., ACF-801);
• State or local survey data (e.g., CCDF Lead Agency market rate survey)
• National survey data (e.g., National Survey of Early Care and Education, U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey, Early Head Start Child-Care Partnerships National Descriptive Study and Sustainability Study);

Recipients will analyze quantitative, qualitative, or mixed- methods data. Recipients will analyze a singular data source or link multiple data sources.

Applicant organizations/entities may submit more than one application on behalf of more than one researcher, if the applications are distinct in scope.

Funding Instrument Type: CA (Cooperative Agreement)
Expected Number of Awards: 8
Average Projected Award Amount: $300,000 Per Budget Period
Anticipated Project Start Date: 09/30/2024
Applications requesting an award amount that exceeds the Award Ceiling per budget period, or per project period, will be disqualified from the merit review and funding under this funding opportunity.

Project Period: The total length of the proposed project. The project period is 36 months in length starting on September 30, 2024, and ending September 29, 2027.

Subawards: Recipients under this program may opt to transfer a portion of substantive programmatic work to other organizations through subaward(s). The prime recipient must maintain a substantive role in the project.