Office of Child Care Initiatives
Child Care and Development Block Grant Act of 2014
In November of 2014, Congressed passed a new child care law making significant changes to the CCDF program. These changes will help ensure a safer, more family-friendly child care program. They will also provide additional training and supports to child care providers. For more information on the CCDBG Act of 2014 and policy resources related to the law, visit the OCC CCDF Reauthorization policy resource page. For technical assistance and training resources related to the law, visit the Child Care Technical Assistance CCDF Reauthorization page.
National Website and Hotline Project
The CCDBG Reauthorization Act of 2014 includes a requirement to design and develop a national website to disseminate child care consumer education information for parents. The information on the website will help parents access safe and quality child care services in their community and provide links to their state or territory child care website.
The Act also includes a requirement for a National toll-free Hotline. This hotline will connect persons to their state or territory to report (anonymously if desired) violations of health and safety requirements which may include suspected child abuse by an eligible child care provider. The hotline will not take reports of violations in child care, but will connect callers to the state entity authorized to enforce child care regulations where the reported violation took place. For more information visit the National Website and Hotline Project page.
Emergency Preparedness
A primary goal of OCC is to help ensure early childhood programs support children's healthy growth and development. This goal becomes especially important in the event of a major disaster or emergency, as children are among our most vulnerable populations. OCC created a web page of emergency preparedness resources for grantees and child care providers. Some of the key resources include:
- 2011 Emergency Preparedness and Response Planning for Child Care Information Memorandum
- Information from the State Capacity Building Center
Consumer Education
Consumer Education is designed to help parents access information in order to make informed child care choices and to strengthen requirements to protect the health and safety of children in child care.
States and territories are working to meet the requirements in the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG) Act of 2014 (P.L. 114-186) and the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) Final Rule (45 C.F.R. Section 98) published in 2016 and to maximize these efforts by implementing best practices for engaging families through effective consumer education. Well-crafted consumer education that is strength-based and culturally, linguistically, and otherwise responsive to the needs of communities they serve, can reach large numbers of diverse families and ensure the widest possible access to information and services.
These resources can provide guidance to states and territories as they develop and implement effective consumer education resources for families. For more information visit the Consumer Education page.