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State CCDF Plans: Levers to Expand Access, Enhance Quality, and Advance Equity
As the nation’s primary and largest child care program which provides federal funds to every state and territory, the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) under the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG) is a key lever to ensuring children and families have equitable access to quality early care and education (ECE). The CCDF Plan submitted every three years is an important tool that Lead Agencies use to describe how they will administer child care systems, plan their CCDF activities, create goals to ensure effective implementation, and develop measures of accountability.
Amidst the backdrop of new CCDF rules and a revised 2025-2027 CCDF Plan template, CCDF Lead Agencies have a timely opportunity to leverage their CCDF Plan to operationalize accessible, quality child care for children, families, and the early childhood workforce, especially those from historically and contemporarily marginalized communities.
In this brief, we provide nine overarching recommendations for CCDF Lead Agencies to leverage the CCDF 2025-2027 Plan to address dimensions of access, quality, and equity and to better reach eligible children and families in low-income households through subsidies, especially those who have been historically and contemporarily marginalized, including Black, Indigenous, Latine, Asian, and other children of color; children with disabilities; emerging bilingual children; and children from under-resourced communities. We highlight sections and questions throughout the Plan in which states and territories can thoughtfully develop targeted strategies and activities. These recommendations can also be used to guide amendments to the 2025-2027 Plan.
Suggested citation:
Bucher, E.Z., Meek, S., Alexander, B.L., Soto-Boykin, X., & Cardona, M. (2024). Expanding Access, Enhancing Quality, and Advancing Equity through State Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) Plans. The Children’s Equity Project. https://cep.asu.edu/resources/AdvancingEquity-through-2025-2027-CCDF.
WEBINAR: State CCDF Levers to Expand Access, Enhance Quality, and Advance Equity
The Children’s Equity Project held a virtual one-hour webinar on our new report “State CCDF Plans: Expanding Access, Enhancing Quality, and Advancing Equity”. Co-authors Dr. Shantel Meek and Dr. Eric Bucher will provide an overview of each of the nine recommendations to address dimensions of access, quality, and equity in the CCDF 2025-2027 Plan.