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

The FOA has been modified to correct an error in the page limit for the application in Section IV.2. Content and Form of Application Submission. Applicants must limit the combined Project Description and Appendices file to 100 pages. The Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation (OPRE), within the Department of Health and Human Services' (HHS) Administration for Children and Families (ACF), intends to award cooperative agreements under the Coordinated Evaluations of Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) Policies and Initiatives: Planning Grants (Phase I) to support partnerships between Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) Lead Agencies and researchers to develop rigorous, policy-relevant evaluations testing child care subsidy policies designed to increase low-income families’ access to high quality child care. Sponsored projects will evaluate local policies and practices related to setting and implementing subsidy payment rates and/or family co-payments. These projects will inform local and federal understanding about the efficacy of child care subsidy policies and practices. These 18-month grants, with one project and budget period, will fund a planning phase to design evaluations. These planning grants may be followed by a second competition (Phase II), under a separate FOA, to support execution of the research and evaluation plans. Projects must be conducted through partnerships between CCDF lead agencies (i.e., states, territories, tribes, or local subsidy administering agencies) and researchers from institutions of higher education or research organizations. The research supported by this grant program should be collaborative from start to finish. The CCDF lead agency and their research partners must work together to refine research plans and protocols during the planning grant period to prepare to implement a rigorous evaluation of subsidy payment rate and family co-payment methods and structures in the subsidy system. Sponsored projects will be expected to participate in a consortium that will meet and communicate regularly to identify opportunities for coordination, such as common data elements and research methods, and to develop collective expertise and resources for the field. The consortium’s collaboration will support research capacity and learning within individual projects and across grantees.