Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

Panel: Using Planning Grants to Build a Collaborative Evaluation Research Partnership Model

(Family and Child Policy)

The Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG) is a $6.4 billion federal program that provides subsidized child care to over 1 million low-income families, with the goal of promoting parental employment and securing quality care for children. In 2014, Congress reauthorized the CCDBG for the first time since 1996 to make the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) program more effective in serving low-income families. New requirements include measures to increase stability, promote parental choice of care, improve eligibility rules and access to quality care, and make the CCDF administrative process more family-friendly.   

 

The new law is not fully implemented yet at the state-level. Thus, it is too early to tell whether the new law is reaching its goals. However, some states have started to plan for evaluation and implementation research studies of CCDBG reauthorization-related changes.  Administered by the U.S. Administration for Children and Family’s Office of Research, Planning and Evaluation (OPRE), the CCDBG Implementation Research and Planning Grant provides states with funding to support these planning activities. 

 

This panel takes a rare opportunity to discuss research planning activities of four states: Massachusetts, Illinois, Georgia and Oklahoma. The panelists will describe the particular aspect of CCDBG reauthorization that they are studying under the CCDBG Planning Grant, what preliminary analyses have been conducted to refine or define key research questions and how the implementation research/evaluation design is taking shape, including how administrative data may be utilized in evaluation studies.  The panelists will reflect on the design process itself, including establishing collaborative partnerships with universities/research firms and/or the involvement of key state stakeholders and identify successes and pitfalls in the design process.  They will also explain how each state is building its research capacity through this planning grant. This discussion will have implications for 1) states seeking to develop their own evaluation studies of not only CCDBG policies but other policy changes and 2) researchers seeking to assist states in this process.