Foa_Content_of_HHS-2023-ACF-OPRE-YE-0040.pdf

Administration for Children and Families

Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation

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

Implementation Grants

HHS-2023-ACF-OPRE-YE-0040

Application Due Date: 06/15/2023

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 (UEI) 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

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:

Implementation Grants Announcement Type:

Initial Funding Opportunity Number:

HHS-2023-ACF-OPRE-YE-0040

Primary CFDA Number:

93.575 Due Date for Applications:

06/15/2023 Executive Summary

Notice:

Applicants are strongly encouraged to read the entire notice of funding opportunity (NOFO) 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/how-apply-grant.

In September 2021, the Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation (OPRE), within the U.S.

Department of Health and Human Services' (HHS) 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 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 with 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.

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 https://www.acf.hhs.gov/grants/how-apply-grant capacity to conduct rigorous research that received funding under HHS-2021-ACF-OPRE-YE- 1901. 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.

Grant recipients 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 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 NOFO aims to address research questions of relevance to state, territory, tribal, or local CCDF policy contexts while building collective knowledge about the effectiveness of child care subsidy policies and practices. A primary goal of this program is to evaluate a single area of policy across lead agencies, with sponsored projects 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 subsidy payment policies (i.e., provider payment rates and family co-payments) on access to child care for families with low incomes both within specific states, territories, and tribes and also across these sites. Research projects must be carried out by research partnerships that received funding to develop evaluation plans under HHS-2021-ACF-OPRE-YE-1901. Together, sponsored project teams will refine and implement evaluation plans developed under Phase I to examine the effectiveness of child care subsidy payment policies and practices in their state, territory, or tribe.

Grant recipients will be expected to implement their proposed research designs to adequately address the research questions of interest and provide valuable information that can help guide CCDF lead agencies in the refinement and improvement of policies. In addition, collaborative, coordinated research activities across the grant recipients will be expected throughout 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, territories, tribes, 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. CCDF is the primary federal funding source for child care subsidies to help eligible working families with low incomes access child care that meets health and safety requirements and supports child development, 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 as vouchers or certificates to families with low incomes or through grants and contracts with providers. 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 legally operating 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 (the Act, codified at 42 U.S.C. 9857 et seq.)

reauthorized the law governing CCDF. The Act 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 Act, states, territories, and tribes have flexibility within federal guidelines over key policy levers—including subsidy payment rates and co-payment amounts contributed by the family.

The Act and the associated 2016 CCDF Final Rule (the Rule, codified at 45 CFR Part 45) 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 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 payment rates at least at a level sufficient to cover the costs to providers incurred by 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 pre-approved 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. (Please note that equal access does not necessarily guarantee equitable access. Find a discussion on equity further down within this section). 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 https://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/occ/ https://childcareta.acf.hhs.gov/ccdf-fundamentals/setting-payment-rates

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 providers can require families 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. Finally, within states, policies decided at the state level may not immediately or consistently translate to the practices of frontline subsidy case workers.

Currently, the field lacks rigorous evidence about how different variations of payment policies (i.e., provider payment rates and family co-payments) affect access to high-quality child care for families with low incomes, limiting policymakers’ ability to make well-informed decisions about child care subsidy policies and to fulfill the goal of the Act to increase access to stable, high-quality child care. In 2021, OPRE 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) 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 low-income families’ access to high quality child care. This NOFO will fund Phase II grants to implement the evaluation plans developed under the planning grants and generate knowledge about how these policies can support access to child care.

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).

More recent work on child care access also funded by ACF expanded the conceptualization of access to include equity as a key consideration. As defined under the Executive Order (EO) on Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government (EO 13985), equity means “the consistent and systematic fair, just, and impartial treatment of all individuals, including individuals who belong to underserved communities that have been denied such treatment, such as Black, Latino, and Indigenous and Native American persons, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders and other persons of color; members of religious minorities; lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) persons; persons with disabilities; persons who live in rural areas; and persons otherwise adversely affected by persistent poverty or inequality”. Although CCDF policies may promote equitable access, more work is needed to understand the extent to which subsidized high-quality child care is equitably accessible to and accessed by families with low incomes.

Since fiscal year (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, 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/sites/default/files/documents/opre/opre_defining-measuring-access-highlight_feb2022.pdf https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/01/20/executive-order-advancing-racial-equity-and-support-for-underserved-communities-through-the-federal-government and local levels; and, to promote linkages among research, policy, and practice. To date, these funds have supported research efforts that have increased the field's 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:

Implementation Grants is to build knowledge about how subsidy payment policies and practices (i.e., provider payment rates and family co-payments) at the local, state, and national levels affect access to child care. Funded partnerships will refine and implement the evaluation plans jointly developed under Phase I to examine how child care subsidy payment policies and practices (i.e., provider payment rates and family co-payments) impact access to quality child care for families with low incomes. Results of the projects funded through this NOFO are expected to inform policies and evaluations in selected sites as well as 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.

Grant recipients will have the opportunity to work with a cohort of other grant recipients in a consortium to share lessons learned, coordinate measurement, identify opportunities for collaborative analyses, and develop collective expertise across sites. Grant recipients 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 collective refinement of evaluation design, data and measurement protocols, and analytic approach, as well as sharing data and supporting the development of collective publications, if such publications are identified. Grant recipients are expected to participate in a process evaluation of the grant program, if one should take place.

It is not the expectation that each of the funded evaluation plans will be exactly the same across states, territories, tribes, or localities, since there is variation in CCDF lead agencies’ data and research capacity and their systems’ readiness for evaluation. Some partnerships may have evaluation plans developed under Phase I that include experimental or quasi-experimental approaches. Some projects may have designs focusing more on evaluating the implementation of policies and practices, utilizing mixed methods to understand fidelity of implementation and the experiences of providers and families. All projects must have evaluation plans that reflect the current status of policy implementation in their local context. All grant recipients, however, will be expected to conduct a rigorous evaluation of subsidy payment policies, to coordinate measurement and data collection protocols across projects, to participate in any collectively identified cross-site analyses, and to implement strategic and research-capacity building dissemination plans.

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

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

Goal 1. To conduct rigorous evaluations examining the implementation and outcomes of subsidy payment policies and practices (i.e., provider payment rate and family co-payment) in the state, territory, or tribe.

Projects funded through this funding opportunity will refine and implement research plans developed under Phase I for evaluations examining the implementation and outcomes of subsidy payment policies and practices (i.e., provider payment rate and family co-payment) 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 policies (i.e., provider payment rates and co-payment structures) and payment practices impact access to high quality child care, specifically with regard to whether care is affordable, meets parents’ needs, requires reasonable effort, and supports children’s development, for families with low incomes?

Evaluations will incorporate rigorous methods appropriate for addressing critical questions in the specific policy context, which should have clearly been developed in close collaboration between CCDF lead agencies and research partners during Phase I. 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 logic models that describe the mechanisms through which the selected policies are hypothesized to affect selected outcomes, which shall include access to child care. Individual project logic models must include, at a minimum, the selected policies, implementation elements and processes, intended results (both short and long-term), and any unintended results, incorporating elements of the coordinated logic model developed collaboratively by grant recipients during Phase I project period.

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

1. How do provider payment policies affect availability and access to care among families receiving subsidies and subsidy-eligible families? In addition:

Do provider payment rates affect providers’ willingness to participate in the subsidy system?

Do provider payment rates affect staff wages and/or recruitment and retention?

2. How do payment rate policies (e.g., differential rates) affect access to higher quality care?

3. How do payment practices (e.g., grants or contracts to provide direct services, payment on basis of enrollment vs. attendance, paying prospectively vs. retroactively) affect availability of and access to child care among families receiving subsidies and subsidy-eligible families?

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

Do family co-payments affect affordability and access to subsidized care?

Do family co-payments and exemptions and adjustments of co-payment policies based on specific family characteristics (e.g., the number of children in care, whether care is part-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 or care of varying quality?

5. What role do subsidy payment policies and practices play in improving equitable access to high quality child care?

Are there differential effects of payment rate and/or co-payment policies for key populations of interest (e.g., home-based child care providers, children with special needs, American Indian and Alaska Native communities, or rural communities)?

How do payment rate policies affect access to care for different sub-populations (e.g., children of different ages, children with disabilities, etc.)?

How do payment practices affect access to care across different populations and communities?

In addition, each grant recipient will examine the impact of policies and practices on key constructs. Although specific evaluations will be based on the specific context, timeline of policy implementation, and research priorities, each grant recipient will coordinate measurement of some constructs and outcomes of interest with other funded grant recipients to support learning across sponsored projects. Key constructs within grant recipients’ 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 (e.g., 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 (e.g., 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.

In addition, successful applicants must gain access to and analyze administrative data collected by the lead agency, if such data exist. This will include within the first year of the grant, at minimum, identifying sources of and assessing the quality of administrative data for potential use in the proposed or future evaluations of CCDF policies and practices. Administrative data may include but not be limited to information on the number of children and families eligible for child care subsidies, number of children and families receiving child care subsidies, number of providers eligible to participate in the child care subsidy program, number and type of providers receiving subsidy payments, and the geographic distribution of children and families receiving subsidies. In addition, applicants proposing to analyze administrative data as part of their project must develop analytic plans and complete initial analyses within the first year of the grant.

Activities focused on administrative data should strengthen the research and evaluation capacity of the lead agency (see Goal 2 below) and the potential to effectively use administrative data in future evaluations of CCDF policies and practices.

Projects funded through this grant are expected to utilize rigorous research designs, methods, and analytic techniques that incorporate an equity perspective and 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.

Sponsored project teams should develop innovative research projects that draw on the resources and opportunities available to rigorously examine the questions above about subsidy payment 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-9- 2021.pdf.

Grant recipients 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 child care. To do this, the consortium of grant recipients will meet regularly to share lessons learned, coordinate data collection protocols and measures, identify opportunities for collaborative analyses and engage in activities that support such analyses, and participate in the development of collective dissemination products.

Goal 2. To develop research partnerships that support collaboration among child care researchers and CCDF lead agencies and 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. 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., refining the evaluation plan, developing procedures to access and use existing data or protocols to collect new data, establish a mechanism to discuss results as they are obtained, consider the practice and policy implications of the results, and disseminate results to multiple audiences). Grant recipients will develop plans for strengthening the evaluation capacity of the lead agency throughout the grant period, which may include activities that support lead agencies in increasing the capacity to conduct internal research or engage in innovative analyses of administrative data.

Partnerships may involve multiple lead agencies or sites to support comparison of varied subsidy payment rate and co-payment policies, if appropriate. 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.

Grant recipients 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, territory, tribal, and/or local agencies;

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

https://www.acf.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/documents/opre/acf-evaluation-policy-november-9-2021.pdf https://www.acf.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/documents/opre/acf-evaluation-policy-november-9-2021.pdf

3. Resource and referral organizations;

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

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

6. Institutions of higher education and 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.

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

Grant recipients will be expected to participate in a consortium of grant recipients, supported by an ACF-designated evaluation coordination team. After award, grant recipient teams for each partnership will work together with other consortium members to identify common constructs and measures, data collection protocols, tools, data management protocols, and analyses, wherever appropriate to allow greater understanding of the policies being evaluated. Grant recipients’ evaluations 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).

Grant recipients will be expected to meet and communicate regularly with federal staff and the consortium to share lessons learned, identify common measures and data collection protocols, identify opportunities for collaborative analyses, plan for dissemination, and develop collective expertise and resources to be shared with the field at large. Specifically, the coordination of measures and data collection protocols will enable the consortium to explore how similar policies and initiatives may yield different effects across sites based on differences in policy, administrative practices, or targeted populations. Grant recipients will provide staffing time and effort for collaborative activities that will improve the quality of consortium projects and products.

Grant recipients will work with a designed evaluation coordination team, funded by ACF to support the work of all grant recipients’ project teams and facilitate collaborative research and dissemination efforts. With the help of the designated coordination team, each grant recipient will contribute to the documentation of site-specific policies, of data sources, and of evaluation plans in order to complete the following:

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.

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

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

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

Consortium Kick-Off Meeting: Key project personnel (i.e., 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, within the first 3 months of the project period. Upon award, grant recipients will be notified of the date of this meeting.

Consortium Meetings: For the duration of the project period, grant recipients 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 (i.e., Principal Investigator(s) and CCDF lead agency partners) will attend the CCEEPRC Annual Meeting, which is typically held in Washington, DC, for 2 full days. The meeting brings together grant recipients, contracted researchers funded by ACF, and federal and state CCDF administrators to discuss child care policy research. This meeting is an excellent opportunity for grant recipient teams to build relationships with key stakeholders and to discuss implications of research developments and the work of the research partnerships.

Grant recipients will attend each year of the project.

Annual Grant Recipient Meeting: It is expected that key project personnel (i.e., Principal Investigator(s) and CCDF lead agency partners) will attend the annual grant recipient 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.

Additionally, grant recipients 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 2024.

Goal 4. To increase the dissemination and use 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.

Grant recipients 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, grant recipient teams will confer with the archive and establish an understanding of the effort, expectations, and a timeline appropriate for archiving.

Grant recipients 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 grant recipients 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 NOFO, section III.1.

Eligible Applicants. Additionally, all subrecipient(s) must obtain a Unique Entity Identifier (UEI) assigned by the System for Award Management (SAM), if they do not already have one.

Prime recipients are required to check 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.

https://www.childandfamilydataarchive.org/cfda/pages/cfda/index.html https://www.childandfamilydataarchive.org/cfda/pages/cfda/share.html https://www.acf.hhs.gov/administrative-and-national-policy-requirements https://www.acf.hhs.gov/administrative-and-national-policy-requirements

F. References OCC. (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

Paschall, K. & Maxwell, K. (2022). Defining and measuring access to child care and early education with families in mind. OPRE Report #2021-232. 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/opre_defining-measuring-access-highlight_feb2022.pdf

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 CCDF Policies Database. Available at: https://ccdf.urban.org/

White House. (2021). EO on Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government. Washington, DC: Author. Available at:

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/01/20/executive-order-advancing-racial-equity-and-support-for-underserved-communities-through-the-federal-government/

II. Federal Award Information

Funding Instrument Type:

CA (Cooperative Agreement) Estimated Total Funding:

$8,000,000 Expected Number of Awards:

Award Ceiling:

$400,000 Per Budget Period

Award Floor:

$200,000 Per Budget Period https://childcareta.acf.hhs.gov/ccdf-fundamentals/setting-payment-rates 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/opre_defining-measuring-access-highlight_feb2022.pdf https://www.acf.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/documents/opre/opre_defining-measuring-access-highlight_feb2022.pdf 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/ https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/01/20/executive-order-advancing-racial-equity-and-support-for-underserved-communities-through-the-federal-government/ https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/01/20/executive-order-advancing-racial-equity-and-support-for-underserved-communities-through-the-federal-government/ https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/01/20/executive-order-advancing-racial-equity-and-support-for-underserved-communities-through-the-federal-government/

Average Projected Award Amount:

$400,000 Per Budget Period

Anticipated Project Start Date:

09/30/2023 Length of Project Periods:

48-month project period with four 12-month budget periods

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

Awards made under this funding opportunity 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 funding under this funding opportunity. 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

ACF is anticipated to:

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

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

Schedule and host meetings of the consortium of grant recipients—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 grant recipient 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.

Work collaboratively with grant recipients to facilitate accomplishment of project goals.

Facilitate collaboration and coordination with other grant recipients, the coordinating center, ACF program offices (e.g., OCC) and their technical assistance providers, and other contractors.

III. Eligibility Information

III.1. Eligible Applicants

Applicants are required to submit written evidence that they are one of the ten grant recipients under HHS-2021-ACF-OPRE-YE-1901 as part of the application submission. Documentation must demonstrate that the applying research partner and CCDF lead agency are the same entities in the partnership funded under HHS-2021-ACF-OPRE-YE-1901. See Section III.3. Other, Application Disqualification Factors. The required documentation is described in Section IV.2.

The Project Description, Additional Eligibility Documentation.

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 form of the required documentation will be disqualified from review and award. The required documentation is described in Section IV.2. The Project Description, Additional Eligibility Documentation. See Section 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 funding under this funding opportunity. See Section III.3. Other, Application Disqualification Factors.

Faith-based and community organizations that meet the eligibility requirements are eligible to receive awards under this funding opportunity. 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 45 CFR Part 87 and 42 U.S.C. 2000bb et seq., ACF will not, in the selection of recipients, discriminate against an organization on the basis of the organization's religious character, affiliation, or exercise.

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 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…