Child Care Aware of America applauds the Dept.’s efforts to build access to affordable, high-quality, reliable child care

ARLINGTON, Va., March 27, 2023 – The United States Department of Commerce today released a planning guide to provide additional information about child care requirements for companies seeking substantial CHIPS funding. Companies applying for more than $150 million will be required to submit a robust child care plan that reflects the needs of their workers in communities where they plan to build.

Child Care Aware® of America (CCAoA) applauds the Commerce Department for requiring companies to demonstrate a commitment to early learning. According to recent CCAoA findings, for a vast majority of this country’s families child care is neither affordable nor accessible. “This new policy is an opportunity to combine public and private dollars to build the supply of affordable, accessible, reliable and high-quality child care,” shares CCAoA Interim CEO Michelle McCready. “When families have access to child care, our whole economy benefits. We see this as an opportunity to pilot innovative programs that will allow parents to confidently enter – and remain in – the workforce.”

CCAoA has long worked toward ensuring every family in the United States has access to high-quality, affordable child care.

• CCAoA’s Membership of over 450 child care resource and referral agencies are a local connection to the child care and early learning system, act as navigators in communities to support families/employees
• CCAoA’s Policy, Research, and Practice Team conducts work assessing and mapping child care supply and demand in communities, provides Technical Assistance to support the development of new child care businesses, supports networks that assist family or home-based child care providers
• CCAoA partners with the United States Military and Department of Defense to serve and support their families through the Fee Assistance and Respite Child Care Programs, serving over 10 million families and creating a network of over 10,000 licensed child care providers

We look forward to continuing this work with the Department of Commerce and manufacturers as this initiative moves forward, and envision this work as a piece of a much broader federally supported child care and early learning system.