Kansas Association for the Education of Young Children

Child Care and Development Block Grant

submitted by Kasey Kile, Kansas AEYC President

Deb Crowl, KansasAEYC Public Policy Chair, Stephanie Schmit, CLASP,
Helen Blank, NWLC, and Kasey Kile, KansasAEYC President

On Monday, Deb Crowl, Kansas AEYC Public Policy Chair, and Kasey Kile, Kansas AEYC President, attended the 'Implementing the Child Care and Development Block Grant re-authorization meeting hosted by Kansas Action for Children.  This meeting allowed for several state organizations to come together to discuss the opportunities and and the challenges that Kansas has in regards to this re-authorization.

What is the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG)?

On November 19, 2014, Congress re-authorized CCDBG, the major federal child care program, for the first time since 1996.  The new law strengthens CCDBG's dual role as both a major early childhood program and a work support for low-income families.  

• The CCDBG governs the use of state and federal Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) dollars for child care assistance and quality improvement initiatives.
• CCDBG re-authorization establishes many new requirements for states, but also maintains state flexibility in many areas.
• The re-authorization does not guarantee new funding to comply with new requirements.

What are the new opportunities in the CCDBG Re-authorization?

• Protect the health and safety of children in care through more consistent standards and monitoring those standards.
• Allow families to more easily access child care assistance that supports stable and continuous child care, and that can be coordinated with other programs.
• Improve the quality of care, including through increased quality set-aside, support for child care providers, and targeted initiates for priority populations.

Further, this meeting had speakers and assistance from Helen Blank, Director of Child Care and Early Learning with the National Women's Law Center, and Stephanie Schmit, Senior Policy Analyst for Child Care and Early Education and Legislative Coordinator with CLASP.  These two individuals brought a wealth of knowledge and resources  regarding the CCDBG re-authorization.  For more information from either of these entities, I encourage you to visit their websites that are linked above.  Deb and I were lucky enough to have some round table discussion with Stephanie Schmit, as well as, take a picture with Helen and Stephanie!  

This conversation and discussion is not over.  There will many more meetings and discussions regarding the implementation of CCDBG for Kansas.  

Resources and information for this blog are from Kansas Action for Children, CLASP, and the National Women's Law Center.