Five Steps to Assess and Simplify Access to State Child Care Subsidy Systems

Written by: Gina Adams, Sarah Prendergast

Ce message était publié à l'origine on Urban Wire, the blog of the Institut urbain.

Each month, the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG) helps almost 900,000 families with low incomes across the US pay for child care, allowing parents to work, receive job training, and go to school. A key work support for families with low incomes, the CCDBG subsidies have been shown to directly support mothers’ ability to work (PDF), including married mothers.

The program, which provides federal funding to states, also makes it easier for parents to choose the child care provider that best meets their needs. It subsidizes a range of child care options, including centers, faith-based programs, family child care homes, and care from friends and relatives.

The CCDBG is also a key support for the 225,000 child care providers the program pays. Its resources allow these providers to serve the children of families with low incomes and help these small businesses stay open. Despite these benefits, many families and child care providers struggle to participate in the child care subsidy system.

The federal government sets a few relatively simple rules about which families can access child care subsidies. However, many states have established additional criteria and requirements that can create barriers to participation among families. In addition, state policies and how they’re implemented can affect which providers can or are willing to participate.

To help more families and providers access child care subsidies, states can change their policies to better serve families who need care and those who provide that care. A new Urban Institute guide offers five steps policymakers and advocates can take to assess and simplify their state’s approach:

1. Understand how families with different characteristics experience state policies and procedures (PDF). Some families face added challenges to participation. Key challenges include living in a rural area, having no or limited internet access, having low literacy, or working nontraditional hours. Often, families with infants et children with disabilities cannot find care that meets their child’s needs.

Keeping these kinds of challenges in mind can help identify whether the state’s approach promotes or prohibits participation and for whom.

2. Explore how state subsidy eligibility policies for families could be simplified (PDF). Though federal requirements for eligibility are relatively simple, states have a lot of discretion in how they implement them and whether they add additional requirements.

For example, federal rules limit eligibility to families who make 85 percent of the state median income. However, these rules don’t define what counts as income.

Some states count money from public benefit programs and child support as income and require parents to report each of these sources of income on their application. Other states only focus on earned income, which is less burdensome both for families to report and for caseworkers to verify.

This illustrates how state decisions on defining and implementing federal rules can have a major effect on how easy it is for parents to prove their eligibility. It also shows how some families may have more difficulty meeting more-burdensome requirements. To simplify the eligibility process, compare state requirements with federal requirements. Examine whether state requirements might be burdensome for families, including families who face added challenges.

3. Considérer what the state requires of families (PDF), how it supports them, and whether these decisions could inadvertently limit family access. States make many decisions about how to set up their child care subsidy system that shape whether families participate. These include how families apply, how they report changes, and how they access the system. State agencies also vary in how they communicate with families, how they treat families, and how they redetermine eligibility. These decisions have implications for how easy it is for parents to access subsidies.

For example, state programs that rely on online eligibility processes will be much less accessible to parents who have limited or no internet access. Similarly, processes that require in-person visits can create challenges for parents in rural areas who don’t have access to transportation or those who have trouble taking time off work. Taking a close look at whether these procedures are working for different kinds of families can help identify existing barriers to participation.

4. Examine how state policies shape which providers can participate (PDF) and whether they think it’s worth the effort. When state policies limit the range of providers who participate in the subsidy system or make participation too burdensome or costly, they also limit parents’ ability to choose the care that best meets their needs.

For example, state payment policies shape whether and how much eligible providers are willing to participate. For example, providers who can meet their enrollment needs with families who pay privately may be less likely to serve children in the subsidy system if the amount the state pays for care is insufficient to cover the costs of providing quality care. If the process of dealing with the state and getting paid is too challenging, it can affect providers’ ability to meet the needs of the children in their care.

Examining state policies in the context of providers’ common constraints can help identify factors that can affect whether the full range of providers can and will participate.

5. Explore the realities facing the families and providers (PDF) the subsidy system aims to serve. To design subsidy systems that meet the needs of parents and providers, it’s essential to understand the characteristics of families and providers in the state as well as how families and providers experience the system.

States can use a range of data sources to explore family characteristics in their state. In addition to the state’s own administrative data for the subsidy program, there are numerous publicly available federal and state data sources that provide rich information to better understand family needs and constraints. States also can gather information directly from parents, providers, and agency staff to understand parent and provider experiences, what is working well, and what isn’t. This information is critically important for states to have in hand when taking the steps outlined above.

By assessing and improving the subsidy system, states can more effectively help parents with low incomes choose and pay for the child care that best meets their children’s needs while helping parents work or go to school.