Family, friend, and neighbor (FFN) child care is used by millions of families, whether it is a regular, paid arrangement, a grandmother who “just provides a few hours of care each week” for her grandchildren, or a well-known neighbor who “watches the kids on her block after school.” This report is a follow-up to Sustaining Family, Friend, and Neighbor Child Care During and After COVID-19: Survey Findings, which offered guiding principles for policymakers to take into consideration as they designed child care policies to be more effective and equitable for families and providers. The report demonstrates how those guiding principles can be applied using specific examples of state strategies to support and sustain FFN child care and empower FFN providers.

The recent large investments in the Tribal Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) program through the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act, and American Rescue Plan (ARP) Act present an opportunity for tribes to enhance their early childhood systems to meet their goals, promote child development, and support working parents. The significantly increased funds offer tribes a chance to invest broadly in their child care and early childhood infrastructure to support higher program quality and improved child and family outcomes. This Information Memorandum provides an overview of how Tribal Lead Agencies can use existing CCDF funds, including supplemental funds provided through the ARP Act, to implement their tribe’s vision for a stronger system of high-quality early care and education at the tribal community level. It offers examples of activities that Tribal Lead Agencies may implement that are allowable under the Child Care and Development Block Grant Act and the CCDF regulations.

The United States is in a child care crisis, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has shown how difficult it is for families to access quality, affordable care and providers to make ends meet. The Better Life Lab team at New America sought to understand what innovations existed in the child care and early education space. Issued from June to September 2022, this five-part article series shares findings regarding what innovations could work in improving child care access, quality, and affordability.

This four-part report series examines the use of paid child care and labor force participation of mothers and includes Part 1 – Paid Child Care Usage in the U.S. and Across States; Part 2 – Labor Force Participation; Part 3 – Economic Growth Modeling; and Part 4 – Child Care Data in the Current Population Survey, A Primer. Each part of the series includes a primer, a glossary of common terms, and relevant infographics. There are also fact sheets on paid care usage and labor force participation for all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

This newspaper article from the Detroit Free Press profiles the challenges faced by low-income and working parents who need child care. It also illustrates a model program that offers 24-hour child care to the parents who need this type of support.

This article notes that a large segment of available workers is choosing to remain out of the workforce and one important factor behind this trend is the need for child care. This factor has a major impact on employers as child care breakdowns create stress for employees that prevents them from being fully present at work, which affects attendance, productivity, and, ultimately, the organization’s bottom line. Drawing from a private sector perspective, the article notes that employers have a huge opportunity to step in to provide the appropriate supports and suggests ways that employers can address the child care crisis, which can help solve the hiring crisis.

This blogpost illustrates food insecurity data and the impact of relief measures on food insecurity. The most recent annual U.S. Department of Agriculture report shows that some 13.5 million households with 33.8 million people were food insecure at some point during 2021. The data tell two stories: on one hand, food insecurity remains too high, being higher both for households with children than without, and for those with members of color than for white households. But overall food insecurity in 2021 was statistically unchanged from 2019 and 2020, even amid a pandemic; it improved for households headed by a Black adult, and it reached a two-decade low for households with children. The rate held steady during the COVID-19 pandemic and is not significantly different from the 10.5 percent rate for 2019 and 2020 due to robust relief measures policymakers enacted. These include Economic Impact Payments, an expanded Child Tax Credit, improved unemployment insurance, and expanded food assistance, along with SNAP’s built-in ability to respond to increased need.

Linking government data between different agencies and departments is a powerful strategy to connect people to valuable benefits that they might otherwise miss. By linking data, the California Policy Lab helped the state of California measure how many Californians receiving safety-net benefits were at risk of not receiving federal stimulus payments, the state Earned Income Tax Credit, and the advanced Child Tax Credit – resulting in millions of dollars of federal aid delivered to non-filing Californians. This toolkit provides step-by-step guidance for government leadership and their staff on how to develop and execute cross-departmental data linkages by focusing on a case study on increasing the take-up of anti-poverty tax credits.

How did the COVID-19 pandemic impact the childcare workforce? This brief analyzes Illinois employment data through 2020 to gain insights on the impact of the global pandemic on childcare workers, who historically have received low wages and experienced high burnout rates. The brief noted that the lowest paid-workers were most likely to experience employment disruptions in 2020, and 42% of workers in the pandemic cohort received unemployment insurance in 2020, compared to less than 3% of the pre-pandemic cohort.

The Administration for Children and Families will host a webinar on December 13, 2021 from 2:30 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. ET as part of a series of webinars on topics related to implementation and coordination of early childhood programs in American Indian and Alaska Native communities. This webinar supports participants in learning about approaches to building and improving facilities for early care and education in tribal communities. During the webinar, participants will hear an overview of issues related to building and improving facilities for early care and education, followed by a panel highlighting innovations and promising practices being implemented in tribal communities. Participants will discuss highlighted strategies with peers and hear about resources they can use in their own communities and programs.