Fact Sheets

Approximately 1.5 million children under the age of 13 are served in some type of child care arrangement supported through the federal Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG) program. The program funds state efforts to help low-income families –parents who are working, pursuing an education, or enrolled in job training – access crucial child care services.

The program has supported countless working families for many years; however, weaknesses in the program have raised the need for reform. Due to a patchwork of licensing, monitoring, and related safety requirements across the country, children are not always as protected as they should be. Further, a wide variety of programs and lack of coordination make it difficult for families to understand the full array of options and determine the best care setting for their children.

THE SOLUTION:

Leaders in the House and Senate have introduced a bipartisan, bicameral agreement to reform this critical program. Building on a proposal passed by the Senate, the legislation will modernize and better coordinate services across related programs, improve child safety, and enhance transparency and the delivery of information to providers and parents. These and other commonsense reforms will help every child that is served have the foundation for success and achievement in school, the workplace, and life.
 
S.1086 – Child Care and Development Block Grant Act of 2014:

• Extends the program’s original intent: supporting low-income working families by ensuring their children are in a setting that will keep them safe and encourage healthy development.
      
• Enhances parental choice by providing information about available care options from all providers, including faith-based and community-based providers, and allowing parents to choose the child care provider that best suits their family’s needs.
      
• Strengthens safety in child care settings by requiring all providers  to comply with state health, safety, and fire standards and undergo annual inspections.
         
• Promotes high quality child care by reserving funds at the state level to improve the quality of care provided to children, enhancing states’ ability to train providers and develop safer and more effective child care services.
       
• Reinforces a prohibition on the administration’s ability to direct, or place conditions on, states’ adoption of standards around early learning guidelines and child-to-provider ratios, in addition to limiting his or her authority to collect extraneous data.

To download this fact sheet, click here.
To download a bill summary, click here.
To read letters of support, click here.
To read the bill text, click here. 

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