Access to Infant and Toddler Care and Education: Research and Evaluation

The Administration for Children and Families (ACF) intends to solicit applications for Access to Infant and Toddler Care and Education: Research and Evaluation awards. The early care and education (ECE) landscape has shifted in recent years due to a number of factors including, but not limited to, increasing state and local investments in public pre-kindergarten, a declining supply of home-based ECE settings, changing ECE workforce qualification or educational requirements, and ECE workforce shortages and provider instability exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. This shifting landscape has implications, including unintended consequences, for access to infant and toddler care and education (i.e., the extent to which families are able to secure care with reasonable effort, the affordability of care, care that meets parents’ needs, care that supports children’s development).This grant opportunity will provide funding to address key research and evaluation questions related to care and education access for infants and toddlers at the national, state, or local level.Specifically, these awards will support either:descriptive research studies to document current access, shifts in access over time, or the characteristics of specific policies, practices, or other efforts that may be affecting access; orevaluations to explore the implementation or effects of specific policies, practices, or other efforts that may be affecting access.Proposed projects can include primary data collection and/or leverage secondary data sources. Proposed projects can use quantitative, qualitative, or mixed-methods data at the national, state or territory, or local level.It is anticipated that awards will have a projected 36-month project period starting on September 30, 2024, and ending September 29, 2027, with two 18-month budget periods. The award ceiling and floor included in this forecast are per budget period. For further information about OPRE, see http://acf.hhs.gov/opre.If you are interested in this funding opportunity, please register at Grants.gov and subscribe to this forecast to receive update notifications.