Foa_Content_of_HHS-2021-ACF-OPRE-YE-1901.pdf

Administration for Children and Families

Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation

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

HHS-2021-ACF-OPRE-YE-1901

Application Due Date: 07/20/2021

Table of Contents Executive Summary

I. Program Description

II. Federal Award Information

III. Eligibility Information

III.1. Eligible Applicants

III.2. Cost Sharing or Matching

III.3. Other

IV. Application and Submission Information

IV.1. Address to Request Application Package

IV.2. Content and Form of Application Submission

Required Forms, Assurances, and Certifications

The Project Description

The Project Budget and Budget Justification

Application Submission Options

IV.3. Unique Entity Identifier and System for Award Management (SAM)

IV.4. Submission Dates and Times

Explanation of Due Dates

Acknowledgement of Received Application

IV.5. Intergovernmental Review

IV.6. Funding Restrictions

IV.7. Other Submission Requirements

V. Application Review Information

V.1. Criteria

The Review Criteria - Lead-In Paragraph

V.2. Review and Selection Process

V.3. Anticipated Announcement and Federal Award Dates

VI. Federal Award Administration Information

VI.1. Federal Award Notices

VI.2. Administrative and National Policy Requirements

VI.3. Reporting

VII. HHS Award Agency Contact(s)

VIII. Other Information

Reference Websites

Application Checklist

Funding Opportunity Title:

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

Initial Funding Opportunity Number:

HHS-2021-ACF-OPRE-YE-1901

Primary CFDA Number:

93.575 Due Date for Applications:

07/20/2021 Executive Summary Notice:

Applicants are strongly encouraged to read the entire funding opportunity announcement (FOA) carefully and observe the application formatting requirements listed in Section IV.2. Content and Form of Application Submission.

For more information on applying for grants, please visit "How to Apply for a Grant" on the ACF Grants & Funding Page at https://www.acf.hhs.gov/grants/howto.

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.

This FOA will fund planning grants (Phase I) for partnerships between Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) Lead Agencies and researchers to develop rigorous, policy-relevant evaluations that will test whether state child care subsidy policies and practices related to setting and implementing subsidy payment rates and/or family co-payments increase low-income families’ access to quality child care. These grants, with one 18-month project and budget period, will provide an opportunity for research partnerships to plan and build capacity to implement rigorous evaluations in Phase II, under a separate future FOA.

Projects must be conducted through partnerships between CCDF lead agencies (i.e., subsidy administering agencies in states, territories, tribes, and localities) and research partners from institutions of higher education, research organizations, or other organizations with demonstrated capacity to conduct rigorous research. The research supported by this FOA should be collaborative from start to finish. Specifically, the CCDF lead agency and their research partners must work together throughout Phase I (this FOA) of the project to develop a research and evaluation plan of the effectiveness of subsidy payment rate and family co-payment methods and structures in the subsidy system to ensure CCDF participants’ access to quality care for their children. Grantees will be expected to clearly document the specific policies and procedures that will be evaluated, document how they will measure the policy implementation or change, and articulate how these findings will be used in future policy and planning decisions.

http://www.acf.hhs.gov/grants/howto

Projects will be expected to inform the field at large. As such, grantees will be expected to participate in a consortium of grantees that will meet and communicate regularly to identify common measures and research protocols, opportunities for collaborative analyses, and develop collective expertise and resources for the field.

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. At the end of the planning grant, grantees are expected to articulate a research plan for a rigorous evaluation of the implementation of subsidy policies and practices related to payment rates. Grantees from this FOA will be eligible to compete for funding to implement the research and evaluation activities as part of Phase II.

Grantees will be funded through the cooperative agreement mechanism. See Section II. Award Information for a description of the substantial involvement of the Federal Project Officer (PO) in the performance of these cooperative agreements.

I. Program Description Statutory Authority Section 658O(a)(5) of the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG) Act (42 U.S.C.

9858m(a)(5)).

Description A. Purpose

This FOA aims to address research questions of relevance while building knowledge about the efficacy of Child care subsidy policies and practices. Over the last 25 years of Child Care Policy Research Partnerships grants, there has been interest in deepening understanding of key subsidy policy topics across sites, but the potential for learning has been limited by the variety of research questions and outcomes and the heterogeneity in measurement. For this reason, a primary goal of this program is to evaluate a single area of policy across sites, examining common research questions, constructs and outcomes. Specifically, funding multiple research partnerships evaluating one policy area will support understanding of the implementation and effects of different methods for setting subsidy payment rates and co-payment amounts on subsidized families’ access to care. Research projects should be developed and carried out through research partnerships between CCDF lead agencies and research partners. Together, they will identify specific questions and develop plans for rigorous evaluations examining the implementation and effectiveness of subsidy payment rate and co-pay policies and practices in the state, territory, tribe, or locality. Grantees will be expected to describe their proposed rigorous research designs and methods to adequately address the research questions of interest and provide valuable information that can help guide CCDF lead agencies in the design and improvement of policies. In addition, a collaborative, coordinated research effort across the grantees receiving these research funds will be expected through the project period, in order to increase both the capacity of the individual projects to meet their research objectives and the potential for learning across projects about best practices in subsidy payment rate and co-payment policy and in research and evaluation. Such knowledge may also inform research and policy-making in other states and localities.

B. Background

CCDF is a partnership between the federal government and states, territories, and tribes, administered by the Office of Child Care (OCC) within ACF dedicated to supporting the employment and economic self-sufficiency of low-income working parents by providing access to affordable, high-quality child care that meets health and safety requirements and supports child development. CCDF is the primary federal funding source for child-care subsidies to help eligible low-income working families access child care and to improve the quality of child care for all children. As a block grant, CCDF gives funding to states, territories, and tribes to provide child care subsidies through grants and contracts with providers, as well as vouchers or certificates to low-income families. CCDF promotes improvement in the quality of care by supporting child care licensing and quality improvement systems, and by supporting child care professionals to attain more training and education. CCDF funds providers in a range of settings, including family child care homes (licensed and legal but license exempt) and centers that may be operated by a public, private, or non-profit entity, or a public-private partnership. To learn more about the goals and initiatives of the CCDF and OCC, please visit the OCC website at https://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/occ/.

The passage of the CCDBG Act of 2014 reauthorized the law governing CCDF. The law defines health and safety requirements for child care providers, outlines family-friendly eligibility policies, expands quality improvement efforts, and ensures that parents and the public have transparent information about the child care choices available to them. Under the law, states have flexibility within federal guidelines over key policy levers—including subsidy payment rates, co-payment amounts contributed by the family, income thresholds for determining eligibility, and quality improvement investments.

Subsidized child care services are available to eligible families through certificates (vouchers), or grants and contracts with providers. Under the law, states must establish eligibility policies, including a period of at least 12 months before eligibility is re-determined, that promote continuity of care for children and families. The program provides parents with the choice of a range of provider settings and types—including centers, family child care homes, relatives, and faith-based providers. Parents may select a participating child care provider that satisfies applicable state and local requirements, including health and safety requirements. Approximately

1.3 million children received a child care subsidy from the CCDF program every month in federal fiscal year (FY) 2018 (see FY 2018 CCDF Data Tables at https://www.acf.hhs.gov/occ/resource/fy-2018-ccdf-data-tables-preliminary).

The CCDBG Act of 2014 (the Act) and the associated 2016 CCDF Final Rule (the Rule) demonstrate a commitment to increasing access to stable, high-quality child care for children from low-income households. In part, this means ensuring that families who are using CCDF subsidies have access to child care that is comparable in quality to the arrangements used by families not receiving subsidies. Recognizing the business constraints of child care providers, the Rule establishes policies intended to stabilize the revenue streams of providers accepting subsidies and, in turn, to increase the supply of child care and the options available to families receiving subsidies. (For more information about requirements governing CCDF subsidy payment rates, see https://childcareta.acf.hhs.gov/ccdf-fundamentals/setting-payment-rates.)

First, as part of ensuring equal access, CCDF lead agencies must set base subsidy reimbursement rates (i.e., payment rates) at least at a level sufficient to cover the costs to providers incurred by https://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/occ/ https://www.acf.hhs.gov/occ/resource/fy-2018-ccdf-data-tables-preliminary https://childcareta.acf.hhs.gov/ccdf-fundamentals/setting-payment-rates federal health, safety, quality, and staffing requirements, and to take into account the cost of higher quality. Lead agencies are also expected to consider their specific context, and thus, must use a recent market rate survey or alternative methodology to set payment rates, with the understanding that setting payment rates at the 75th percentile (thus allowing families to access 75 percent of available care) is recommended for promoting equal access. Second, most families utilizing CCDF-funded care are required to contribute co-payments to providers. The Rule establishes a recommended federal benchmark for affordable co-payments to be no greater than 7 percent of family income, although co-payment rates may differ across states and within priority populations. Within these broad federal guidelines for the CCDF program, states, territories, and tribes have substantial flexibility in setting specific co-payment policies (e.g., which families are required to pay a co-payment, how copayments are collected, if families are required to pay the difference when the provider’s charge exceeds the maximum rate). The CCDF Policies Database (https://ccdf.urban.org/) explores in more detail state-level variations in relevant policies, including specific information related to payment rates and co-payment structures. In addition, states may be at various stages in the implementation of these policies, as described in a recent analysis of states’ implementation of the CCDBG Reauthorization (Lin et al., 2020). Finally, within states, policies decided at the state level may not immediately or consistently translate to the practices of frontline subsidy case workers.

To understand how subsidy payment rates and family co-payment policies affect families’ access to care, it is important to consider not only the supply of care, but also the breadth of families’ constraints and preferences. Recent work funded by ACF defines "access" as a multi-dimensional construct—one that encompasses the extent to which families are able to secure care with reasonable effort, the affordability of care, care that meets parents’ needs, and care that supports children’s development (https://www.acf.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/documents/opre/cceepra_access_guidebook_final_21 3_b508.pdf).

Since FY 2000, the CCDF program has provided funding for research intended to help child care decision-makers in crafting policies and initiatives that support positive outcomes for families and children; to increase the capacity for child care research at the national, state, and local levels; and, to promote linkages among research, policy, and practice. The CCDBG Act of 2014 allowed for up to ½ of 1 percent of total mandatory and discretionary funding in annual appropriations to be set aside for research. In FY 2020, that amount was close to 40 million dollars. To date, these funds have supported research efforts that have increased our knowledge about the efficacy of child care subsidy policies and programs in enhancing employment and economic self-sufficiency of low-income families, and in improving quality in child care and early education settings to support learning and development of children. Descriptions of current and past research projects funded with these research set aside funds can be found at https://www.acf.hhs.gov/opre/research/topic/overview/child-care.

C. Program Goals and Expectations

The overall goal of the Coordinated Evaluations of CCDF Policies and Initiatives Planning Grants is to provide CCDF lead agencies and research partners the opportunity to plan for a rigorous, policy-relevant evaluation of child care subsidy policies and practices. Specifically, in Phase I (the current FOA), grantees will develop a research plan to evaluate how subsidy policies https://ccdf.urban.org/ https://www.acf.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/documents/opre/cceepra_access_guidebook_final_213_b508.pdf https://www.acf.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/documents/opre/cceepra_access_guidebook_final_213_b508.pdf https://www.acf.hhs.gov/opre/research/topic/overview/child-care and practices related to payment rates (including reimbursement rates to providers and co-payment amounts paid by subsidy-receiving households) support low-income families’ access to quality child care. Results of the projects funded through this FOA are expected to inform policies and evaluations in other sites; identify and demonstrate links between policies, practices or activities, and key outcomes; support building knowledge of the effects of child care subsidy policies and practices on key outcomes of interest; and inform federal subsidy policy.

Grantees will have the opportunity to work with a cohort of other funded grantees, participate in peer learning, and develop and plan for a rigorous evaluation. In Phase I (these Planning Grants), grantees are expected to contribute to the development of common measures and data collection protocols intended to support strong and consistent assessment of key constructs and outcomes of interest across projects, with the flexibility that would allow individual sites to address the questions of their specific evaluations. Coordination across projects will support triangulation of findings and analyses of data across sites. Thus, project activities will include refinement of logic models, evaluation design, data and measurement protocols, and analytic approach. Grantees are expected to participate in a process evaluation of the grant program, if one should take place.

CCDF lead agencies in states, territories, tribes, and localities are likely in different points in their readiness to develop a research and evaluation plan under this grant. This grant program is intended for project teams at all levels of evaluation readiness: those with extensive experience with research and evaluation, and those who have less experience. It is not the intention for each of the evaluation plans to be exactly the same across states, territories, tribes, or localities, including the level of complexity and rigor. Some states may develop more complex research plans, including using the planning grant to do preliminary analyses, assessment of data systems, or conducting pilot studies, while others may develop simpler designs and spend the planning grant learning about research and evaluation and solidifying newer research partnerships.

Grantees will have the opportunity to apply for funding as part of Phase II, a separate, future FOA, to implement their research plans, conduct a rigorous evaluation, participate in cross-site analyses as supported by an ACF-designated coordination team, and implement dissemination activities.

Project teams must include a state, territory, tribal, or local CCDF lead agency and a research partner from an institution of higher education, a research organization, or an organization with demonstrated capacity to conduct rigorous policy research. CCDF lead agencies can partner on multiple applications for funding under this grant program; however, it is unlikely that a lead agency would be awarded more than one grant as the grantee or as the partner. This also applies to research institutions, such that organizations may submit multiple applications as the research partner, but an organization would not receive more than one grant as the grantee institution or as the partner.

The specific goals and expectations of the grant program include the following:

Goal 1. To develop research plans for rigorous evaluations examining the implementation and outcomes of subsidy payment rate and co-payment policies and practices in the state, territory, or tribe.

Projects funded through this funding opportunity will develop research plans for evaluations examining the implementation and outcomes of subsidy payment rate and co-payment policies and practices in the state, territory, tribe, or locality. In order to support knowledge building across projects, each project must design their evaluations to address the following overarching research question:

How do subsidy payment rates and co-payment structures affect parents’ access to child care, specifically with regard to whether care is affordable, meets parents’ needs, requires reasonable effort, and supports children’s development?

Research plans will incorporate rigorous methods appropriate for addressing critical questions in the specific policy context, developed in close collaboration between CCDF lead agencies and research partners. In line with the consideration of child care access as a multi-dimensional construct, sponsored research will examine the impact of these policies on families’ access to care along the following five access dimensions:

1. meets the parents’ needs,

2. supports children’s development,

3. affordability,

4. reasonable effort, and

5. equity (Thomson et al., 2020)

As part of their projects, successful applicants will target these outcomes and will examine whether specific payment rate and co-payment policies are effective in supporting families’ access to care. They will have clearly articulated theories of change that describe the mechanisms through which the policies are hypothesized to affect outcomes.

Key issues underlying these policies that are of significant interest to ACF include the following:

1. How do payment rate policies and practices affect access to care among subsidized families and low-income, working parents who are eligible for subsidies, as defined by the state?

2. How do co-payment policies affect access to care? In other words:

o Do co-pays affect affordability and availability of subsidized care?

o Do co-pays, and exemptions and adjustments of co-pay policies based on specific family characteristics (i.e., the number of children in care, whether care is part-time or full-time, and whether the care is being provided for a child with special needs), affect parent preferences, choices, and use of different types of care?

3. Are there differential effects of payment rate and/or co-payment policies for key populations of interest (i.e., families with different characteristics and needs, children of different ages, children with special needs)?

4. What is the impact (on access to care) of limiting family co-pays to 7 percent of their income?

In addition, when designing the evaluation, each grantee will consider examining the impact of policies and practices on key constructs over time. Although specific designs will be based on the specific context, timeline of policy implementation, and research priorities, each grantee will allow for refining measurement of some constructs and outcomes of interest to support learning across grantees. Key constructs within grantees’ evaluations will include the following:

Alignment of payment practices for subsidy-receiving providers that are comparable to other providers (e.g., pay based on enrollment rather than attendance, pay for registration fees);

Consistency of implementation of payment structures and practices throughout state, territory, or tribe;

Supply of providers eligible for subsidized care and accepting child care subsidies (i.e., child care centers, small and large family child care homes, in-home providers, etc.)— percentage and characteristics of providers available to eligible children, including ages served, number of subsidized children they serve, service hours, prices charged for care, geographic location, quality of care;

Percentage and characteristics of subsidized children in each type of care, in different levels of care quality;

Demand for care among subsidy-eligible families (i.e., number of children/families on waiting lists, what families report they want/need), including among key vulnerable populations (i.e., children in foster care, children from families experiencing homelessness, infants and toddlers, children with disabilities, and children who need care during nontraditional hours); and

Subsidized families’ access to child care, defined multi-dimensionally.

Projects funded through this grant are expected to develop plans that utilize rigorous research designs, methods, and analytic techniques that are appropriate and sufficient to address the research questions of interest and contribute to the knowledge base regarding how policies related to payment rates and co-payment structures affect subsidized families’ access to care.

Grantee teams should develop innovative research projects that draw on the resources and opportunities available to rigorously examine the questions above about subsidy reimbursement rates and co-payment rates and structures. Rigorous research incorporates the following criteria:

Credibility: Ensuring what is intended to be evaluated is actually what is being evaluated; making sure that descriptions of the phenomena or experience being studied are accurate and recognizable to others; ensuring that the method used is the most definitive and compelling approach that is available and feasible for the question being addressed. If conclusions about program efficacy are being examined, the study design should include a comparison group (i.e., randomized control trial or quasi-experimental design).

Applicability: Generalizability of findings beyond current project (i.e., when findings fit into contexts outside the study situation). Ensuring the sample being studied represents one or more of the populations being served by the program.

Consistency: When processes and methods are consistently followed and clearly described, someone else could replicate the approach, and other studies can confirm what is found.

Neutrality: Producing results that are as objective as possible and acknowledge the bias brought to the collection, analysis, and interpretation of the results.

Please see ACF’s Evaluation Policy for a more detailed definition of "rigor" at https://www.acf.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/documents/opre/acf_evaluation_policy_november_ 2012.pdf.

https://www.acf.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/documents/opre/acf_evaluation_policy_november_2012.pdf https://www.acf.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/documents/opre/acf_evaluation_policy_november_2012.pdf

Grantees will also contribute to the field’s understanding of best methods to demonstrate the relationship between policies and practices related to subsidy payment rates and co-payments and families’ access to high-quality care. To do this, the consortium of grantees will coordinate their plans with regards to common measurement of access to care and other key constructs, similar data collection, data management, and analytic approaches, and contributing data to pooled analyses across sites.

Goal 2. To develop research partnerships that support collaboration among child care researchers and CCDF lead agencies which build the capacity of lead agencies to plan and conduct rigorous research that can inform federal, state, territory, tribal, and/or local subsidy policy.

Research sponsored by CCDF funding is intended to provide valuable information that can help inform child care decision-makers in crafting policies and initiatives to support positive outcomes for families and children. Sponsored project teams must include a state, territory, tribal, or local CCDF lead agency and a research partner from an institution of higher education, a research organization, or an organization with demonstrated capacity to conduct rigorous policy research. If the policies related to payment rate setting and co-payment structures are determined at the county level or other jurisdiction/area in the state, applications from partnerships between the lead agency at that level and research organizations will be entertained.

Partnerships may be formalized through memoranda of understanding, contracts, or sub-award agreements during the course of the grant.

The research partner and lead agency (or agencies) must actively collaborate with each other through all phases of the grant (i.e., selecting research questions, defining constructs and outcomes of interest, designing research, developing procedures to access and use existing data or protocols to collect new data). Partnerships may involve multiple lead agencies or sites to support comparison of varied subsidy payment rate and co-payment policies, if appropriate. In fact, collaborative projects that would explore common questions across states are encouraged.

Projects funded through this grant will significantly inform policies and practices. Ongoing collaboration between partners ensures that the research will be of direct use to the lead agency, as well as to the field at large.

Grantees will consult with other child care policy stakeholders, especially organizations that are critical to the implementation of child care policies or initiatives central to the proposed research objectives. For example, the following entities may also be included as part of a research partnership project, in addition to the CCDF lead agency and research partner:

1. Partnerships across state and/or local agencies;

2. Departments and agencies that administer child care programs for low-income children, including public or private child care centers, Head Start, or public pre-K;

3. Resource and referral organizations;

4. State agencies or organizations that oversee Quality Rating and Improvement Systems (QRIS) or licensing initiatives;

5. Planning councils, commissions, advisory groups, and other organizations that participate in child care planning and policy making;

6. Non-academic research organizations;

7. Tribal, county, or local agencies that administer child care subsidy programs;

8. Family child care providers or networks; and

9. Providers of technical assistance or consumer education, and other stakeholders.

It is expected that by the end of the period of performance, grantees would be able to submit a competitive application for funding of the implementation of their research plan (in Phase II grants). Please note the following: Submitting an application to Phase II does not guarantee funding. The applicant will need to demonstrate that they are ready to implement a rigorous research and evaluation design to address the questions identified above (within Goal 1).

Goal 3. To foster active communication and collaboration among grantees in order to strengthen individual projects and to build knowledge about child care subsidy policies.

Grantees will be expected to participate in a consortium of grantees, supported by an ACF-designated evaluation coordination team. After award, grantee teams for each partnership will work together with other consortium members to explore the use of common constructs and measures, data collection protocols, tools, data management protocols, and analyses, wherever appropriate to allow greater understanding of the policies being evaluated. Grantees’ evaluation plans will use approaches that measure and explore multiple dimensions of access to child care, as outlined in Section I. Program Description, C. Program Goals and Expectations, Goal 1 and described in the recent work supported by ACF (https://www.acf.hhs.gov/opre/resource/defining-and-measuring-access-to-high-quality-early-care-and-education-ece-a-guidebook-for-policymakers-and-researchers).

Grantees will be expected to meet and communicate regularly with federal staff and the consortium to share lessons learned, identify opportunities for collaboration and cross-site measurement, plan for dissemination, and develop collective expertise and resources to be shared with the field at large. Specifically, the coordination of research plans will enable the consortium to explore how similar policies and initiatives may yield different effects based on differences in policy, administrative practices, or targeted populations.

Grantees will provide staffing time and effort for collaborative activities that will improve the quality of consortium projects and products. Grantees will focus their effort primarily on planning and coordinating with consortium members. Grantees will develop common data collection protocols and measures, as well as finalize the proposed evaluation design, methodology, and analytic approach based on detailed logic models. Project research designs will incorporate measures and analyses developed with consortium members. Each grantee’s final evaluation plan will include an implementation study and a rigorous test of the effectiveness of the policies and any changes in practice. Project research designs will incorporate measures and analyses developed with consortium members.

Grantees will work with a research coordinating team, funded by ACF to support the work of all grantees’ project teams and facilitate collaborative research and dissemination efforts. With the help of a designated coordinator, each grantee will contribute to the documentation of site-specific policies, of data sources, and of evaluation plans in order to complete the following:

https://www.acf.hhs.gov/opre/resource/defining-and-measuring-access-to-high-quality-early-care-and-education-ece-a-guidebook-for-policymakers-and-researchers https://www.acf.hhs.gov/opre/resource/defining-and-measuring-access-to-high-quality-early-care-and-education-ece-a-guidebook-for-policymakers-and-researchers

1. inform policy evaluations in other sites,

2. identify potential links between policies, practices or activities, and outcomes,

3. support building knowledge of the effects of subsidy policies and practices on key outcomes of interest, and

4. inform federal subsidy policy.

In addition, each project team must participate in the development of cross-project publications and presentations, supported by the coordinator.

To support shared learning and dissemination, grantees must attend, and should budget for, the following required meetings and conferences:

Consortium Kick-Off Meeting: Key project personnel (e.g., Principal Investigator(s) and CCDF lead agency partners) are expected to attend the 2-day, in-person, kick-off meeting. This meeting is typically held in Washington, DC (although it could be held virtually), within the first 3 months of the project period. Upon award, grantees will be notified of the date of this meeting.

Consortium Meetings: For the duration of the project period, Grantees will meet monthly by videoconference to support joint exploration and shared learning about research methods.

Child Care and Early Education Policy Research Consortium (CCEEPRC) Annual Meeting: It is expected that key project personnel (e.g., Principal Investigator(s) and CCDF lead agency partners) will attend the CCEEPRC Annual Meeting, which is typically held in Washington, DC (although it could be held virtually), for 2 full days.

The meeting brings together grantees, contracted researchers funded by ACF, and federal and state CCDF administrators to discuss child care policy research. This meeting is an excellent opportunity for grantee teams to build relationships with key stakeholders and to discuss implications of research developments and the work of the research partnerships. Grantees will attend each year of the project.

Annual Grantee Meeting: It is expected that key project personnel (i.e., Principal Investigator(s), Project Directors, lead agency representative) will attend the annual grantee meeting to discuss project developments, issues of common interest, and potential collaborative products and resources. This meeting is typically held 1 day prior to or following the CCEEPRC meeting in Washington, DC (although it could be held virtually).

Additionally, grantees are encouraged, but not required to attend:

State and Territories CCDF Administrators Meeting (STAM). STAM is hosted annually in Washington, DC, typically in August.

ACF’s National Research Conference on Early Childhood (NRCEC). NRCEC is hosted bi-annually in Washington, DC, typically in June. The next meeting will be held in summer 2022.

Goal 4. To increase the dissemination of child care research at the national, state, territory, tribal, and/or local levels.

Results of the research activities funded through this announcement, including the implications of results for subsidy policies at the national and state levels, will be made widely accessible.

Grantees must create a project dissemination plan describing project dissemination goals, target audiences, and products/activities (e.g., written briefs, specific venues for presentation, briefings for key stakeholders, website, direct emails). The overall project dissemination plan should serve to guide the creation and execution of dissemination activities and products over the course of the project.

Project products and data may be archived with the Child and Family Data Archive (https://www.childandfamilydataarchive.org/cfda/pages/cfda/index.html) or another suitable archive. Early in the project, grantee teams will confer with the archive and establish an understanding of the effort, expectations, and a timeline appropriate for archiving. Grantees will work with the archive to select the data sets that are most appropriate for archiving and decide among the options for dissemination that best address all concerns related to privacy, intellectual property rights, data ownership, and other issues. Specifications and additional information regarding data preparation and archiving can be found on the following webpage:

https://www.childandfamilydataarchive.org/cfda/pages/cfda/share.html.

D. Additional Project Requirements

Under the cooperative agreements, substantial involvement is anticipated between ACF and the grantees throughout the duration of the funded projects. Please see Section II. Federal Award Information, Description of ACF's Anticipated Substantial Involvement Under the Cooperative Agreement for more information.

E. Subawards

Project teams may, but are not required or encouraged to, structure and fund their partnerships through subawards. Consistent with the eligibility criteria, any eligible entity may serve as a subrecipient (i.e., a recipient of the subaward). If partnerships will be structured with a subaward, applicants must include a subaward selection process that includes a risk assessment of potential subrecipients. Consistent with the expectations for project teams discussed throughout this funding opportunity, the applicant must clearly identify and justify the roles, responsibilities, and management plan for all subrecipients.

Recipients under this grant program may opt to transfer a portion of substantive programmatic work to other organizations through subaward(s). The prime recipient must maintain a substantive role in the project. ACF defines a substantive role as conducting activities and/or providing services funded under the award that are necessary and integral to the completion of the project. Subrecipient monitoring activities alone, as specified in 45 CFR § 75.352, do not constitute a substantive role. Furthermore, ACF does not fund awards where the role of the applicant is primarily to serve as a conduit for passing funds to other organizations unless that arrangement is authorized by statute.

Subrecipient(s) must meet the eligibility requirements identified in the FOA, Section III.1.

Eligible Applicants. Additionally, all subrecipient(s) must obtain a Data Universal Numbering System (DUNS) number, or after government-wide implementation, a Unique Entity Identifier https://www.childandfamilydataarchive.org/cfda/pages/cfda/index.html https://www.childandfamilydataarchive.org/cfda/pages/cfda/share.html assigned by the System for Award Management (SAM), if they do not already have one. Prime recipients are required to check the SAM to verify that the subrecipient(s) is/are not debarred, suspended, or ineligible.

Please reference "Award Term and Condition on Subawards" on the ACF Administrative and National Policy Requirements website for further requirements involving subawards.

F. Appendix

Lin, V., Maxwell, K., Daily, S., & Stepleton, K. (2020). Initial Implementation of the 2014 Reauthorization of the Child Care and Development Block Grant, OPRE Report #2020-111, Washington, DC: Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation, Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Available at:

https://www.acf.hhs.gov/opre/report/initial-implementation-2014-reauthorization-child-care-and-development-block-grant

Office of Child Care. (2019). Fiscal Year 2018 CCDF Data Tables (Preliminary). Available at: https://www.acf.hhs.gov/occ/data/fy-2018-ccdf-data-tables-preliminary

Office of Child Care. (2020). Setting Payment Rates. Available at: https://childcareta.acf.hhs.gov/ccdf-fundamentals/setting-payment-rates

Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation. (2020). Child Care (webpage). Accessed at:

https://www.acf.hhs.gov/opre/topic/child-care

Thomson, D., Cantrell, E., Guerra, G., Gooze, R., & Tout, K. (2020). Conceptualizing and Measuring Access to Early Care and Education. OPRE Report #2020-106. Washington, DC:

Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation, Administration for Children and Families, U.S.

Department of Health and Human Services. Available at:

https://www.acf.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/documents/opre/conceptualizing_and_measuring_acc ess_508_final.pdf

Urban Institute. (2020). The Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) Policies Database.

Available at: https://ccdf.urban.org/

II. Federal Award Information Funding Instrument Type:

CA (Cooperative Agreement) Estimated Total Funding:

$ 2,250,000 Expected Number of Awards:

Award Ceiling:

$ 150,000 Per Project Period

Award Floor:

$ 75,000 Per Project Period https://www.acf.hhs.gov/administrative-and-national-policy-requirements https://www.acf.hhs.gov/administrative-and-national-policy-requirements https://www.acf.hhs.gov/opre/report/initial-implementation-2014-reauthorization-child-care-and-development-block-grant https://www.acf.hhs.gov/opre/report/initial-implementation-2014-reauthorization-child-care-and-development-block-grant https://www.acf.hhs.gov/occ/data/fy-2018-ccdf-data-tables-preliminary https://childcareta.acf.hhs.gov/ccdf-fundamentals/setting-payment-rates https://www.acf.hhs.gov/opre/topic/child-care https://www.acf.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/documents/opre/conceptualizing_and_measuring_access_508_final.pdf https://www.acf.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/documents/opre/conceptualizing_and_measuring_access_508_final.pdf https://ccdf.urban.org/

Average Projected Award Amount:

$ 150,000 Per Budget Period

Anticipated Project Start Date:

09/30/2021 Length of Project Periods:

18-month project period and budget period

Additional Information on Project Periods and Explanation of 'Other' Additional Information on Awards:

Awards made under this announcement are subject to the availability of federal funds.

Applications requesting an award amount that exceeds the Award Ceiling per budget period, or per project period, as stated in this section, will be disqualified from competitive review and from funding under this announcement. This disqualification applies only to the Award Ceiling listed for the first 12-month budget period for projects with multiple budget periods. If the project and budget period are the same, the disqualification applies to the Award Ceiling listed for the project period. Please see Section III.3. Other, Application Disqualification Factors.

Note: For those programs that require matching or cost sharing, recipients will be held accountable for projected commitments of non-federal resources in their application budgets and budget justifications by budget period or by project period for fully funded awards, even if the projected commitment exceeds the required amount of match or cost share. A recipient's failure to provide the required matching amount may result in the disallowance of federal funds.

For more information on these requirements, see Section III.2. Cost Sharing or Matching.

Description of ACF's Anticipated Substantial Involvement Under the Cooperative Agreement Award

Monitor the project and provide technical assistance and feedback when necessary.

Provide leadership to maximize cooperation and collaboration among grantees, including organizing periodic consultations and monthly teleconferences to discuss research activities, share information and promote coordination among the sponsored projects.

Schedule and host grantee meetings—two in-person meetings and regular teleconferences throughout project period, as well as set the agenda and coordinate activities for each meeting.

Collaborate in activities specified in the award and review and approve specific project milestones including a set of common measures and the production of project materials.

Act as a liaison between the grantee and OCC to help ensure that project developments are communicated to federal stakeholders and that research products developed by consortium are accessible to the policy community.

ACF will work collaboratively with grantees to facilitate accomplishment of project goals.

ACF will facilitate collaboration and coordination with other grantees, the coordinating center, ACF program offices (e.g., OCC) and their technical assistance providers, and other contractors.

III. Eligibility Information III.1. Eligible Applicants Eligibility under this FOA is defined under section 658O(a)(5) of the CCDBG Act (42 U.S.C.

9858m(a)(5)). The statutory authority for this funding opportunity does not limit eligible entities to receive this funding.

Applicants are required to submit written evidence that research is a primary organizational activity of the research partner as part of the application submission. Research partners are described in Section I. Program Description, C. Program Goals and Expectations. The required documentation is described in Section IV.2. The Project Description, Additional Eligibility Documentation. Lack of the required documentation will disqualify the application from review and from award. See Section III.3. Other, Application Disqualification Factors.

Applicants are required to provide either:

1. a letter showing approval of the application from, or

2. a letter of proof that the applicant is, the CCDF lead agency that is responsible for setting relevant subsidy policies (i.e., lead agency in states, territories, tribes, or localities). Applicants who fail to submit either forms of the required documentation will be disqualified from review and reward. The required documentation is described in Section IV.2. The Project Description, Additional Eligibility Documentation. See Section III.3. Other, Application Disqualification Factors.

Faith-based organizations may apply for this award on the same basis as any other organization, as set forth at and, subject to the protections and requirements of this part and 42 U.S.C. 2000bb et seq., the Department will not, in the selection of recipients, discriminate against an organization on the basis of the organization’s religious character, affiliation, or exercise.

Applications from individuals (including sole proprietorships) and foreign entities are not eligible and will be disqualified from competitive review and from funding under this announcement. See Section III.3. Other, Application Disqualification Factors.

III.2. Cost Sharing or Matching Cost Sharing / Matching Requirement:

No For all federal awards, any shared costs or matching funds and all contributions, including cash and third-party in-kind contributions, must be accepted as part of the recipient’s cost sharing or matching when such contributions meet all of the criteria listed in 45 CFR § 75.306.

For awards that require matching by statute, recipients will be held accountable for projected commitments of non-federal resources in their application budgets and budget justifications by budget period, or by project period for fully funded awards, even if the projected commitment exceeds the amount required by the statutory match. A recipient’s failure to provide the statutorily required matching amount may result in the disallowance of federal funds.

Recipients will be required to report these funds in the Federal Financial Reports.

For awards that do not require matching or cost sharing by statute, where “cost sharing” refers to any situation in which the recipient voluntarily shares in the costs of a project other than as statutorily required matching, recipients will be held accountable for projected commitments of non-federal resources in their application budgets and budget justifications by budget period, or by project period for fully funded awards. These include situations in which contributions are voluntarily proposed by a recipient or subrecipient and are accepted by ACF. Non-federal cost sharing will be included in the approved project budget so that the recipient will be held accountable for proposed non-federal cost sharing funds as shown in the Notice of Award (NOA). A recipient’s failure to provide voluntary cost sharing of non-federal resources that have been accepted by ACF as part of the approved project costs and that have been shown as part of the approved project budget in the NOA, may result in the disallowance of federal funds. Recipients will be required to report these funds in the Federal Financial Reports.

III.3. Other Application Disqualification Factors Applications from individuals (including sole proprietorships) and foreign entities are not eligible and will be disqualified from competitive review and from funding under this announcement.

Award Ceiling Disqualification

Applications that request an award amount that exceeds the Award Ceiling per budget period or per project period ("per project period" refers only to fully funded awards), as stated in Section II. Federal Award Information, will be disqualified from competitive review and from funding under this announcement. This disqualification applies only to the Award Ceiling listed for the first 12-month budget period for projects with multiple budget periods. If the project and budget period are the same, the disqualification applies to the Award Ceiling listed for the project period.

Required Electronic Application Submission

ACF requires electronic submission of applications at www.Grants.gov. Paper applications received from applicants that have not been approved for an exemption from required electronic submission will be disqualified from competitive review and from funding under this announcement.

Applicants that do not have an Internet connection or sufficient computing capacity to upload large documents to the Internet may contact ACF for an exemption that will allow the applicant to submit applications in paper format. Information and the requirements for requesting an exemption from required electronic application submission are found in "ACF Policy for Requesting an Exemption from Electronic Application Submission" at www.acf.hhs.gov/grants/howto#chapter-6.

Missing the Application Deadline (Late…