State CCDF Plans: Levers to Expand Access, Enhance Quality, and Advance Equity
June 2024
Authors: Dr. Eric Bucher, Dr. Shantel Meek, Dr. Brittany Alexander, Dr. Xigrid Soto-Boykin and Mario Cardona
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.
Nine ways states can strengthen their CCDF plans
The Children’s Equity Project’s brief offers nine recommendations for state and territory agencies developing or amending their 2025–2027 Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) Plans. The recommendations address access to child care, the quality of children’s experiences, and equity for families and providers:
- Improve affordability and access to quality care.
- Stabilize child care through grants and contracts.
- Strengthen quality improvement activities.
- Improve health and safety.
- Expand access to quality, inclusive care for children with disabilities.
- Improve access and quality for emergent bilingual children.
- Support emotional well-being and prevent suspension and expulsion.
- Improve data systems and publicly report data.
- Align CCDF activities with equity priorities using an equity strategic plan.
The brief points Lead Agencies to sections of the CCDF Plan where they can put these priorities into practice and measure their progress.
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Frequently Asked Questions About CCDF and Child Care Equity
The Child Care and Development Fund, or CCDF, is the nation’s largest federal child care program and provides funding to every state and territory. CCDF helps eligible families in low-income households access child care while also giving states and territories tools to strengthen the quality, availability, and stability of their child care systems.
A State CCDF Plan describes how a state or territory will administer its Child Care and Development Fund program. Lead Agencies submit CCDF Plans every three years to explain how they will administer child care subsidies, carry out child care activities, establish implementation goals, and measure accountability. The report focuses specifically on opportunities within the 2025–2027 CCDF Plans to expand access, improve quality, and advance equity.
States can use CCDF policies to reduce families’ child care costs and remove barriers to accessing assistance. The report explains that the 2024 CCDF final rule limits family co-payments to no more than 7% of household income and gives Lead Agencies flexibility to waive co-payments for additional populations, including children with disabilities, children experiencing homelessness, children in foster or kinship care, and children enrolled in Head Start or Early Head Start.
The report recommends using grants and contracts to strengthen the supply and stability of child care. These approaches can help expand care for populations and communities where supply is limited, including infants and toddlers, children with disabilities, families in rural areas, and parents who need care during nights, weekends, or other nontraditional hours. Grants and contracts can also provide more predictable funding to child care providers.
CCDF Lead Agencies are required to devote a portion of their funding to quality improvement activities. The report states that at least 12% of CCDF funds must support quality improvement, including 3% specifically for infant and toddler care. These funds can support workforce training and professional development, early learning guidelines, quality improvement systems, infant and toddler care, mental health supports, accreditation, and other efforts to improve children’s experiences. CEP recommends targeting these investments toward closing inequities in access and quality rather than spreading funds too broadly.
States can use their CCDF Plans to strengthen inclusive child care, improve developmental screening and referrals, train providers, and address barriers that exclude children with disabilities from early learning settings. The report notes that nearly 40% of states and territories reported that children with disabilities accounted for less than 0.5% of their CCDF subsidies, although limitations in state data collection mean these figures may not capture every child served. CEP recommends improving both access to and the quality of inclusive child care.
CCDF can help states expand access to high-quality child care that supports children’s home languages as well as English. The report notes that roughly one-third of U.S. children under age five are emergent bilinguals, yet CCDF serves less than 20% of emergent bilingual children nationwide. CEP recommends expanding access to high-quality dual language opportunities because language access affects instruction, relationships with teachers and families, social-emotional safety, belonging, and overall program quality.
States can use CCDF quality and policy levers to promote children’s emotional well-being and reduce harsh and exclusionary discipline. The report emphasizes that emotional safety, supportive relationships, responsive care, developmentally appropriate expectations, and awareness of bias are important features of high-quality early learning environments. CEP recommends giving providers the supports they need to prevent suspension and expulsion, including mental health resources and strategies for addressing racial, gender, and disability-related disparities in discipline.