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

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; Phase I). 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 payment rates) on access to high quality child care for families with low incomes. This Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) will fund Phase II grants to implement the evaluation plans developed under the planning grants. Because much of the work conducted under the planning grants was foundational, only institutions awarded planning grants under HHS-2021-ACF-OPRE-YE-1901 will be eligible to apply for funds under this NOFO.This NOFO will fund grants for a 48-month project period and four 12-month budget periods. Grants will support research partnerships between CCDF lead agencies and researchers to implement evaluations of child care subsidy payment policies and to collectively, as part of coordinated evaluations, build knowledge about the effectiveness of different payment policies to increase access to high-quality child care and early education services for families with low incomes. In addition, grants are designed to continue strengthening the evaluation capacity of CCDF lead agencies.The research supported by this NOFO should be collaborative from start to finish. Specifically, the CCDF lead agency and their research partners must work together to refine and implement the evaluation plan developed under the planning grant. Grant recipients will be expected to articulate plans for strengthening the evaluation capacity of CCDF Lead Agencies throughout the grant period.Projects will be expected to inform the field at large through participation in a consortium of grant recipients and coordinated evaluation activities. The consortium of Phase II grant recipients will meet and communicate regularly to share lessons learned, develop common measures and data collection protocols, identify opportunities for pooled analyses, and develop collective expertise and resources for the field. Grant recipients will also be expected to participate in the documentation of local subsidy policies and policy contexts and project-specific data protocols to inform coordinated evaluation activities across projects.For more information about OPRE or past Child Care Policy Research grants programs, please go to https://www.acf.hhs.gov/opre/project.