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Family-Friendly Applications are Key to Equitable Access in Child Care

While the process for finding child care is often difficult and daunting for families, the application for child care assistance doesn’t have to be. Families, especially those with low incomes—along with those who are Black, Latino/Hispanic, Indigenous, and immigrants—face significant challenges in finding care that is accessible and affordable. The application process creates unnecessary administrative burdens not only for families but also for states.  

The federal Office of Child Care (OCC) has created a new guide for state child care agencies on how to create family-friendly child care applications. This effort was informed by interviews with child care providers, regional child care assistance offices, families who applied for child care assistance, teams across the Department of Health and Human Services, and advocacy groups.  

In its guide, the OCC encourages states to simplify the content and format of child care assistance applications and makes the case that streamlining application and eligibility processes leads to better program integrity. Simplifying the application process is a key step in helping more families access subsidies and is just as important in broadening the eligibility criteria to serve the greatest number of eligible children possible. 

It is crucial for states to implement OCC’s suggestions to reduce administrative burdens on their agencies, make it easier for families to apply, expand access to care, and enable more parents to enter the workforce and support their families. In CLASP's new blog, we share the new OCC guide and how implementing the suggestions supports children and families. 

For any questions, please contact Alejandra Londono-Gomez at [email protected].

Read the blog here: [link removed]

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Center for Law and Social Policy
1310 L Street NW
Suite 900
Washington, DC xxxxxx
United States