Coordinated Evaluations of Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) Policies and Initiatives: Implementation Grants

SAM.gov System Alert - Entity Validation Delays:Due to high demand, SAM.gov is experiencing a considerable delay in processing entity legal business name and address validation tickets. As needed, please start the process early to avoid interruptions in application submissions. You can find SAM resources related to this process here - https://www.fsd.gov/gsafsd_sp?id=kb_article_view&sysparm_article=KB0058422&sys_kb_id=7bb8810ddba05990060d5425f3961912&spa=1. In September 2021, the Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation (OPRE), within the Department of Health and Human Services' (HHS) Administration for Children and Families (ACF), funded ten cooperative agreements under HHS-2021-ACF-OPRE-YE-1901 (Coordinated Evaluations of Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) Policies and Initiatives). Those grants provided funding to support partnerships between CCDF Lead Agencies and researchers to develop rigorous, policy-relevant evaluation plans that examine the impact of child care subsidy payment policies (i.e., family co-payments and/or provider reimbursement rates) on low-income families’ access to high quality child care. Under this forecasted Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO), only grant recipients awarded planning cooperative agreements will be eligible to apply for Phase II funds to implement their evaluation plans with their planning grant partners, as referenced in Section 1.C of HHS-2021-ACF-OPRE-YE-1901.Funding is subject to availability of funds and the best interest of the Federal government. If ACF publishes this funding opportunity requesting applications, the complete NOFO will provide additional details, including the final constructs of interest and expectations for the recipients. Awards will be made on a competitive basis according to the evaluation criteria in the NOFO.Proposed research projects should be feasible, with rigorous evaluation plans that are clearly suited to test the effectiveness of subsidy payment policies for increasing low-income families access to quality child care in local contexts. Projects of interest to ACF will include strong implementation evaluations and will assess equity in access to CCDF resources and child care services in their approaches.During this grant period, partnerships awarded grants will refine and execute their evaluation plans developed under the planning grant. Grant recipients will be expected to clearly document the theory of change motivating their research study, document how they will measure policies under study and outcomes of interest, and articulate how findings from their research study will inform local and federal understanding about the efficacy of child care subsidy policies and practices. These awards will cover a 48-month project period with four 12-month budget periods.Grant recipients will be expected to participate in a consortium that will meet and communicate regularly to identify opportunities for coordination, such as common measures and research methods and collaborative analyses, and to develop collective expertise and resources for the field. Grant recipients will collaborate on measures, theory of change development, and operational definitions to ensure that the results of their projects increase understanding of child care subsidy payment policies and their effects on child care systems and on low-income families access to quality child care within respective localities and in the United States.For more information about OPRE or past Child Care Policy Research grants programs, please go to https://www.acf.hhs.gov/opre/project. If interested in this announcement, please create an account at Grants.gov and subscribe to this forecast to receive notifications of updates and publication.
Categories: Income Security and Social Services.