Improving Educational Freedom for Young Children and Families

Improving Educational Freedom for Young Children and Families

Glenna Davis: Hello and welcome everyone to the Office of Early Childhood Development webcast, Improving Educational Freedom for Young Children and Families. Now it is my pleasure to turn the floor over to the acting associate deputy assistant secretary in the Office of Early Childhood Development, Sam Aigner-Treworgy. Sam, the floor is yours.

Sam Aigner-Treworgy: Thank you so much, Glenna. I'm so pleased to welcome everyone to our webinar today. We will begin by launching a poll to find out about who is with us and learn a little bit about your thoughts on promoting parent choice and educational freedom for families. Please use this QR code shared on the screen or the link that's shared in the chat to participate in our opening poll.

I believe the link is in the chat now. It looks like we have a great turnout with state and local leaders alike, and I'm just so thankful for all of you for participating today and helping us know who is here. Now the link is in the chat, so you should have that now. With that, excited to see all of you introducing yourselves. With that and with all of those state and local leaders who are joining us today, it is my pleasure to introduce Andrew Gradison, the acting assistant secretary of the Administration for Children and Families. Andrew.

Andrew Gradison: Thank you very much, Sam. Good afternoon, everyone and good morning to those of you not on the East Coast. I'm really grateful to be here with you today. From the opening days of this administration, the President has made clear that we stand for educational freedom and allowing parents to choose what's best for their families, especially when it comes to the educational settings that they choose for their children.

Within the first week in office, President Trump signed an executive order expanding educational freedom and opportunities for families. The aim of the President's executive order is simple: to ensure that all families, including those with low incomes and/or working families, have the option to choose educational alternatives to government-run schools, including private and faith-based options.

We have a literacy crisis in this country. The most recent data shows that about 40% of fourth graders are proficient in math and under a third are proficient in reading. The problem is that our educational systems are not meeting students' needs. We're failing children, especially disadvantaged children. But it's become clear that parents want to have more of a choice and more of a say in how to meet their needs of their children.

In response to that problem, 17 states have taken the lead here. 17 states have universal school choice, allowing families, not the government, to choose the right educational setting for their children. The evidence on that is clear. When you give families more options, we promote competition, and competition will raise standards. ACF fits into this equation, too, outside of states taking the lead on K-12 education.

In response to President Trump's executive order, on April 29th of this year, the Administration for Children and Families released multiple guidance documents to promote educational freedom. We are an agency that is committed to promoting the economic and social well-being of children, families and communities and ensuring that our states, our counties and our grant partners ... our grant recipients are equipped to do so well.

One of our key priorities is ensuring that families are best able to choose schools and early childhood settings that reflect their values and their religious beliefs. Throughout our nation's history, religious schools have played a vital role in American education. ACF recognizes this. We are working to ensure that parents, providers and grantees are available of the flexibilities that exist for faith-based childcare providers and after-school programs.

Many states, territories and tribes are already doing this critical work of promoting educational freedom for families and young children. Our job at ACF is to continue to support you all to lead in states and communities and to do what we can to make it easier for you to put families in the driver's seat when it comes to their children's education.

That's what this webinar is about and why we're putting ... why we put this guidance together that outlines the flexibility that you have through our federal programs to give families more choices. I'll now introduce our Deputy Assistant Secretary, Lauri Todd-Smith, who's leading our work in this area. Thank you, Laurie, for all you're doing and bringing the ACF to lead on this charge.

Dr. Laurie Todd-Smith: Thank you, Andrew. I feel like it's such an honor to work with you, and I'm really grateful for your leadership and commitment to expanding education freedom for children and families. I am so happy to be here today. I'm excited to see such a huge turnout to learn more about these flexibilities from various people across the country and organizations joining our webinar today.

I am a long-term educator, and it's so rewarding to see so much interest in the topic of improving parental choice in education. I have a lengthy background in early childhood education spanning from Arizona, New Mexico and Mississippi in teaching elementary school and preschool, and then working in the policy space as a governor's education advisor and then going on to lead the Women's Bureau at the U.S. Department of Labor.

I've always felt very fortunate that all of my jobs have given me the ability to continue to work in improving access to quality care for young children. One of the things I'm most proud of during my career is helping draft something Andrew just talked about, a literacy program in Mississippi. I was deeply involved in the interventions of the Literacy-Based Promotion Act in Mississippi.

This new bill from 2013 required many strategies to help our youngest children learn how to read. The program is now referred to as the Mississippi Miracle. The child outcomes show that our students in that state went from being last in the nation in reading scores to now being ranked ninth overall in fourth grade reading.

I learned a lot from this miracle. You're going to hear people say that it was the science of teaching reading. You'll hear a lot of people say that it was the teacher training or it was the state leadership that made that difference. Those things are all true. They all helped in making a big difference in a state that was least expected to move forward in this area. But the true miracle was really the parents.

They are the first and most important teachers, and they actively engaged in literacy as a family. What that taught me in my role now is that empowering parents is the best way for us to drive success. You might be wondering, how does school choice fit into early childhood education? We know from research that school choice ... More school choice options actually improves student outcomes, particularly in early childhood.

There was a 2018 study that found that more parent-chosen preschools actually improved kindergarten readiness by 20 to 30%. Much like my Mississippi experience where parent empowerment drove the success, there are studies that show when parents have more school choice options student reading, specifically proficiency, improves by 5 to 10% specific for low-income children.

I'm thrilled to be part of the agency, the Administration for Children and Families, and leading the work of early childhood development, focused on making sure you today learn all about the flexibilities that you have to use your existing funding streams to help the most vulnerable children. As Andrew mentioned, we now have many states that are offering universal school choice in the pre-K through 12 systems.

One of my previous jobs was at America First Policy Institute. When I started there in 2021, we had zero states with universal school choice. Today we now have 17. There are 34 additional states that offer private school choice for families. That led into this executive order, President Trump's executive order, that I feel really blessed. I got to actually help in drafting the Expanding Education Freedom and Opportunity for Families executive order.

To now be on the end of leading the early childhood development team, I really think that you all, I hope, will gain a lot of information about the flexibilities ... How to do that in your own states. Today, you're going to hear about the various funding streams. I hope that you will have some a-ha moments of how we can use these existing flexibilities that you already have to help the parents in your communities.

You're going to hear about Head Start playing a role in helping parents select programs that work best for them and how you can partner with Head Start and local efforts to help parents understand all the options in their child's education. You'll also hear from the CCDF team, our Office of Child Care team, how vouchers can offer families more choice and developing faith-based settings and how we can support families who are even interested in homeschooling their children through the use of these vouchers.

When we talk about the future of how we're going to help parents who are now ... Who you're now serving in the early childhood space, these will be lifelong skills as states continue to expand school choice. We will be able to help and empower families become long-term advocates about how to make the best choices for their child's education. I am excited for you to hear from my team today.

Please share all your ideas and questions in the comments today using the Q& A feature. We definitely want to hear from you and support the work that you're doing to allow families to lead on what they know is best for their children. I'm going to turn it back over to Sam. I will be joining in and looking forward to the rest of the conversation. Sam, back to you.

Sam: Thank you so much, Laurie. It's so great to hear about your experiences in Mississippi and how impactful parent choice was in really achieving the long-term goals for children and families. I am excited to be here with you today and to introduce a great panel of ACF program leaders, including Maggie Quinn from the Office of Child Care, Deborah List from the Office of Family Assistance, Janelle George from the Office of Community Services, Tala Hooban from the Office of Head Start, and Ben O'Dell from the HHS Faith Center.

Thank you to each of our panelists for joining us here today. I'm really excited to get started with our discussion to learn more about the guidance that you all recently issued. I'm going to start with you, Maggie. Your office, the Office of Child Care, released guidance and strategies that really help states think about expanding the programs that accept CCDF vouchers, building on one of the core purposes of CCDF that really empowers family to make their own decisions regarding the childcare and that types of care that best fit their needs. I'm hoping you can start by telling us a little bit about this guidance and really highlighting the flexibility that it offers states to use to enhance family choice.

Maggie Quinn: Thanks, Sam. Yes, that's right. One of the core and longstanding principles of the Child Care and Development Fund, CCDF program, is to promote parental choice to empower working families to make their own decisions regarding childcare services that best meet their families' needs.

Many of you are aware that the CCDF statute and regulations require that every family offered CCDF assistance is given the option to receive childcare services through a certificate or voucher. What you might not know is that lead agencies ... So that's states, territories, and tribes ... Must permit parents to choose from a variety of provider types and settings.

That could include center-based childcare, family childcare, relative care and faith-based providers. Our guidance focuses on strategies for CCDF lead agencies to help ensure that a full range of providers are available so that families really can choose the childcare setting that works best for them.

Our guidance also clarifies the flexibility that faith-based providers have when a family freely chooses their care through the use of a voucher or certificate. I'll discuss that a little bit more on the next slide. We know that parents want to have choices not only in the early care and education setting for younger children, but to continue to have choices as they move into elementary school and beyond.

We can actually go back to the last slide. To support school choice throughout their education, the guidance also provides strategies on how CCDF lead agencies may support school choice for school-age children. It's important to remember that CCDF is available to support school-age children. In fact, 35% of children benefiting from CCDF nationally are school-aged children age 6 and older. That's based on 2022.

Children are eligible for CCDF assistance up to age 13 or up to age 19 if they're physically or mentally incapable of caring for himself or herself or if they're under court supervision. Also, CCDF subsidies can be used for care during non-school hours, which is really important for supporting before-school, after-school and wraparound care for school-aged children.

Also, for the first time, this new guidance describes the flexibility that states have to support families who choose to homeschool their children. While this guidance reiterates that CCDF cannot be used for education services for children enrolled in grades one through 12, it does describe the ways ... The important ways that CCDF can support families who homeschool.

States have the flexibility to define homeschool teaching as a qualifying activity for parents for CCDF eligibility, making homeschooling families potentially eligible for CCDF. Homeschooling families may want to use CCDF assistance to access childcare programs or providers in the community during non-core school hours if parents have part-time work, training or volunteer activities and need care.

CCDF cannot be used for actual homeschooling, but this option enables homeschooling families who may need care for younger children not receiving educational instruction during their siblings' homeschooling hours to access childcare subsidies. Our guidance reiterates that CCDF assistance may not be used to pay for care provided by the child's own parents.

Therefore, parents who homeschool cannot receive CCDF assistance for the children they are homeschooling during those core school hours. However, the funds can support the cost of childcare for siblings or for care needed during non-core school hours. We can move on to the next slide now.

I want to spend the rest of my time today to explain the flexibility CCDF offers to support participation from faith-based providers. To support faith-based providers to participate in the CCDF program and to serve children who use subsidies, faith-based providers receiving CCDF assistance through vouchers or certificates are allowed to use CCDF funding for religious purposes or activities.

There's also flexibility in hiring requirements for faith-based providers in the CCDF program, allowing providers to require their employees to adhere to religious tenets and teachings. This flexibility supports parental choice by allowing faith-based providers to care for children in accordance with their beliefs and values.

Based on 2019 estimates, there are approximately 7,500 faith-based childcare centers nationwide, and 2,730 of them currently accept CCDF vouchers or certificates. We encourage lead agencies to consider how to support more participation from this important provider type.

Finally, states who want to support participation from faith-based providers may use CCDF quality dollars to offer technical assistance to providers interested in participating in the CCDF program to meet CCDF health and safety standards and state's licensing standards, if applicable. They can use quality dollars to provide grants to childcare providers to offset compliance costs, leveraging CCDF quality improvement funds or they can conduct outreach through religious networks to raise awareness respecting their autonomy.

Sam: Excellent. Maggie. That's great. Thank you so much. It's just so great to highlight the ways that CCDF can be used to really support the full range of parent choices. Hearing ways that CCDF vouchers can support families that do choose homeschooling ... Such a wonderful way to give families choice in the options that they are choosing for their children.

I love the way you highlighted all the strategies that we can really highlight that include more faith-based entities, and I hope to hear a little bit more about that later on in this from Ben as well. Hoping we can expand even more options for families through our faith-based services. Deborah, I'm going to turn to you next.

I think a lot of people think of temporary assistance for needy families as a cash assistance program. I'm hoping you can tell us a little bit more specifically around how TANF dollars and funds can be used to expand school choice for families. Really thinking in particular about the children and youth in after school and childcare programs, how the TANF funds can help in finding options that best meet the needs of their families. Again, thinking about the private and faith-based options that families in leveraging TANF may actually be choosing for their children.

Deborah List: Hi, Sam. Thank you for the question and the opportunity to speak today. You're right. States, territories and tribes do use TANF funds to provide cash assistance to low-income families with children. But TANF also funds a wide range of other benefits and services designed to accomplish the program's four statutory purposes.

These TANF-funded activities include things like work and training programs, work supports, refundable tax credits, and most importantly for our conversation today, early childhood care and education as well as other services for children and youth. States can actually transfer up to 30% of their annual TANF block grant to CCDF.

Once transferred, the funds follow the same opportunities and guidelines that my colleague Maggie just talked about. TANF can also fund childcare, after-school programs, or wraparound services directly if the state sees a need in their communities and the activity meets a TANF purpose. In these cases, as noted in our recent guidance, a state could use TANF to fund such services like after-school programs or childcare at educational alternatives to governmental entities, including private and faith-based options.

States generally have a lot of flexibility in the types of providers they can fund with TANF for these services. I will note that while TANF has a lot of flexibility to expand educational choice and support families in finding the care that is best for their children, there are some statutory parameters, including that TANF cannot fund a component of the state's system of free public schools.

A state may, however, use TANF funds for the costs of wraparound services that complement and extend the public school system to provide childcare services for the full day. As noted, those services may be funded at private and faith-based options. That's basically the flexibility allowed for TANF. If there are further questions on TANF and transfers to CCDF or allowable uses of TANF funds, we welcome follow-up questions. There's an email address mentioned in the guidance that we put out, which is tanfquestions@acf.hhs.gov.

Sam: Thanks, Deb. That's great to hear. Really appreciate you highlighting all of the ways that TANF can be used to support childcare and really think through those options for families. I'm sure we'll have a question or two later that will come up specifically around the TANF use in childcare, especially.

But first, I want to ask Janelle ... Your office released guidance for two programs, the Social Services Block Grant and the Community Services Block Grant. I'm hoping you can tell us about those two programs a little bit and really thinking around the ways that we can use those programs to support Choices for Families.

Janelle George: Yes. Thank you so much, Sam. You are correct. We did release guidance on April 29th for both our Community Services Block Grant, or CSBG, as well as our Social Services Block Grant, or SSBG programs, all focused on limitations and allowable uses for their program funds or any sort of educated ... education-related expenses, programs and services.

A little bit about CSBG: CSBG is a block grant program. The program supports community-based efforts to reduce poverty. It also works to improve economic self-sufficiency, as well as address the needs of individuals and families with low incomes. Per the CSBG Act, states are required to pass through 90% of their CSBG allocation to eligible entities, which mostly are comprised of community action agencies.

The CSBG Act also states that the 90% that is passed through to those eligible entities cannot be used for services that are normally provided to the general public, like K-12 education. However, it can be used to support other education-related services, such as childcare, before- and after-school programs, tutoring, supplemental or special education services, or adult education and training programs, all to empower parents.

States also are allowed to retain 10% of their CSBG allocation, and a portion of that can be used for vouchers for K-12 education. The parameter for that is that those activities must align with an approved state or tribal plan, and CSBG state plans must be based on a community needs assessment, which states are required to conduct every three years.

In regards to our Social Services Block Grant program, again, this is a block grant that is providing flexible funding to our states so that they can support a wide variety of social services, all looking at reducing dependency, preventing neglect and abuse, and promoting self-sufficiency among vulnerable populations. The SSBG statute is actually quite explicit, in that it prohibits the use of funds for providing any sort of educational services which could generally be provided to individuals at no cost. They're speaking of things like K-12 education.

However, SSBG funds can also support vouchers for education-related activities that align with the SSBG program goals, like school enrichment, career and life skills, any sort of social and emotional development, things that are directly connected to education and success. For both CSBG and SSBG, states can give families some flexibility to choose programs that best fit their children's needs while ensuring some access to quality enrichment opportunities. I would like to note that the guidance that we released did provide some examples of some of those educated-related activities that the programs could support.

Sam: Thank you so much. It's great to hear about those programs and all of the ways that they might really be able to serve the school readiness purpose that I know many states are focused on, as they address the literacy crisis, I know that we're facing as a nation. Tala, great transition to you and the ways that the Office of Head Start is really working to inform programs of the ways that they can serve their critical role in helping parents understand their school choice options, their early childhood, early care and education options. I'm hoping you can tell us a little bit more about what the Head Start program leaders can do to facilitate parent choice that was highlighted in your information memorandum.

Capt. Tala Hooban: Thank you, Sam. Good afternoon ... good morning to you, early childhood family. In response to the executive order and to support school choice for families, the Office of Head Start released an information memorandum, which you might hear us always referring to it as an IM, that outlines the critical role that Head Start plays in promoting parent choice to select the early childhood early care providers that best meet their family needs.

The IM recognizes that Head Start programs serve as a foundation for school readiness for more ... For many families preparing young children for academic and social success. Head Start programs can help parents understand school choice options, including what early childhood options that are available.

We know that they can and do serve as a valuable resource to prepare families to effectively utilize school options in their communities as their children transition into elementary school. The Office of Head Start guidance discusses three keyways that Head Start programs facilitate parent choice.

Head Start programs are encouraged to actively participate in state and local efforts to coordinate enrollment and promote the variety of early care and education options available in their state and their local community. Head Start programs are encouraged to work closely with families to determine their program model and consider how their program offers ... Offerings respond to their family needs.

Programs can re-examine and develop community partnerships to expand in ways that support family choices. For example, through connections with faith-based and home-based settings for families that want those options. What does this look like in action? First, Head Start programs can play an important role in supporting parent choice during transitions. Whether there's a new baby in the family, or infants and toddlers and preschoolers who are ready to enter or graduate from Early Head Start or Head Start, knowledgeable staff and programs can help families explore the best early care and school options for their children.

Transitions are important moments for children and families and great times for conversations about what's best for the child and the family in their next step forward in education. We know that many factors influence these decisions for parents, including work schedules, safety and trust, word of mouth, input from other parents, family values, culture, religion and convenience, to name a few things that are on families' minds during these times.

Head Start programs should and always try to help families understand all of the early childhood and elementary school options in their local community as they do outreach with families and during their transition along children's journey through preschool or to kindergarten and elementary school.

That's a pretty big transition for families. Beyond what Head Start programs do with families, they work directly with programs ... Can help all families by joining state and local partners to support the coordinated enrollment and other efforts to better integrate early childhood service options within the community and to promote a variety of options for families across the mixed delivery systems.

For example, we have Head Start for Kent County serving Head Start children and families in Grand Rapids, Michigan. This program took a leading role to coordinate with other community-based organizations that provide preschool services in their geographic area to create a joint enrollment system.

At the time, preschool services in the area were expanding and preschool providers wanted to maximize services for children and families with the limited resources that they had, while also reducing competition among providers. Through a joint committee, the providers created a universal enrollment application and database, along with a call center and a joint website that helped families find community-based private and public preschool options in the community.

With a joint enrollment system across all provider options, families can now access one portal or call one number to apply for their first, second and third choice preschool options, which reduce the burden on families and maximize the efficiency for providers. Innovative leadership of Head Start for Kent County emphasized how implementation has really helped all preschool providers in their service area to honor and support parent choice in early education. I know a lot of you are already doing other innovative things to do this.

Another way is Head Start programs should also work to involve families in making decisions. They can and should do this through engaging their policy counsel. This is a critical way to gather family input to shape the program ... Head Start programs that reflect parental preference.

Programs should also use community assessments to explore and ... parent and family priorities. It is important to keep those family priorities front and center and communicate with parents openly and regularly, collecting information from them about their preferences and using that information to improve service delivery.

Lastly, Head Start programs must be fully enrolled, so they have a vested interest in offering the kinds of programming that is mostly responsive to family choice and making sure that the program model fits what the families are looking for. To the degree that our programs can offer families childcare and extended stay support or offer home-based and locally designed options, we know that these models can support parent choice.

We know that there are many types of Head Start agencies, from community action agencies to faith-based nonprofits, public, private, and charter school settings and more. The variety of Head Start programs, in itself, offers families a range of different options. But beyond that, programs can think about their partnerships.

We encourage programs to think more creatively about ways to partner with other programs and services, including partnering with charter preschools, family childcare homes, faith-based organizations and others that offer early childhood opportunities that may be the most desired by families in the community.

By layering and braiding funding streams, coordinating with partners and listening to families, Head Start programs can help reduce or eliminate financial barriers and can empower families with limited resources to make informed early childhood education choices, to select a program with a specific curriculum, quality rating or convenient location that works best for them. Thank you, Sam.

Sam: Thank you so much, Tala. It was great to hear so much great things that are happening in Head Start communities, and all of the strategies that Head Start programs are using to make sure that they are actively engaging in the choices that families can have in their local community and making sure that families get to the programs that best meet their needs.

Ben, I'm going to turn to you with that note and ask you a little bit more. I know you work closely with many faith-based groups and other community-based organizations. After hearing about all of this new guidance from ACF, what suggestions do you have for state and program leaders on the call on how they can partner with these faith-based groups and community-based organizations? Do you have any recommendations for faith leaders and how they can help partner with the state as well?

Ben O'Dell: Thanks, Sam. Thanks to everybody who joined the webinar today. Thanks to all the staff at ACF who helped work on this guidance and have put together this amazing webinar today. Then again, just thank you all for being here to hear about some of these important changes and updates that are being made and the guidance that's being received.

I want to share three quick ideas, strategies for thinking about how to connect with some of these groups, because partnership starts with connection. Partnership starts with reaching out and making that engagement and saying, hey, we're here and we want to work with you all. Three tips there and then a few quick follow-up ideas on faith engagement.

Those three tips are engage with people who know people, engage with who you know and then engage with who you don't know. Let's talk a little bit about each of those. Engage with people who know people. Just like we have the Center for Faith or the Faith Center at HHS, there are state offices for faith engagement. There are county and municipal offices for faith engagement.

These are folks who know the faith leaders in your respective communities and your states. They've built relationships over time. They have connections. They've done site visits. These offices are ready and excited. I was just talking to them yesterday. I know some of them are on the call today that are excited to reach out and connect their faith and community-based organizations to these opportunities and strategies in some of these programs.

Additionally, you can reach out to networks. This can look like ministerial alliances. This can look like multi-faith and interfaith coalitions that are in your local communities. What's great about these connections is that you're not just reaching out ... When you reach out to one group, you're reaching out to many, a network of groups in your community. Not only that, but you're accessing the capacity that this network is building within those faith traditions and communities.

These can be a really helpful partner in those outreach strategies. Next, engage who you know. There may be staff who are working with you on these programs that attend houses of worship that are part of the traditions and communities in your area. They may know senior leaders in those traditions and communities, can make an introduction and say, hey, we'd love to talk about some of the ways we can do this work together.

Engage people who know ... Who already are in your community that you know. Then lastly, look at proximity. Maybe just open up Google, search for the closest house of worship to your office and then identify yourself. You may be in line at Subway with a senior pastor tomorrow and not even know who that individual is without looking at that website and looking at that proximity that can lead to any number of opportunities and collaborations that might be possible.

Lastly, I want to encourage you to engage who you don't know. When we think about faith and community engagement, sometimes we often think about the mega church right down the corner that everybody thinks about connecting with. Or sometimes we think about the majority faith tradition in our local community. Those are key groups, and we want to encourage you to reach out to those groups, but I also want to encourage you to think about the groups you might not initially think about. I was looking up this data.

In your mind, for a second, imagine the second largest religious tradition in your state. I'll give you a second. Think about who you think might be the second largest religious tradition in your state. Let me give you some answers. In South Dakota and South Carolina, it's the Baha'i faith. In Montana and New Mexico, it's Buddhism is the second largest religious tradition.

Then in Nebraska, the second largest tradition is the Hindu tradition. Some of these groups can be just over the moon excited to reach out to you and to ... When you reach out and can be some of your strongest partners for the excitement that they bring to those collaboration and opportunities.

In all of this work, I want to celebrate and honor and just champion the fact that we're really emphasizing religious liberty and all these opportunities and making sure that we're honoring the deeply held religious traditions and backgrounds of these groups, and so much of what's possible is possible when ... So much more is possible when we engage mechanisms like certificates, like vouchers and other indirect funding mechanisms where that choice is given to the parent of where these funds go.

That's something we want to encourage, celebrate and really lift up as a great strategy that honors the religious liberty traditions that are so important to our country. I also want to thank the faith leaders who are with us who've been on this call for today and joining us and learning, wanting to learn more, the networks that are here today. We so appreciate your participation.

We so appreciate you wanting to learn more about this space and get involved. The center ... The HHS Center, which has been in place since the Bush administration, and it was just renewed by President Trump on February 7th, is here to support this ongoing work. We're building tools, resources. We're going to be having webinars that are going to help your faith leaders think about the ways they can get involved and hear stories from other faith leaders who have gotten these funds, who have participated in some of these programs and are actively engaging in some of these strategies.

Through the webinars we're going to host, you're going to have a chance to hear from other faith leaders who are part of this story so that you can find yourself in that story, too. We're excited to join with you all through those opportunities and resources. You can reach out to us at faith at hhs.gov and our new website, hhs.gov/faith for any information about those webinars, follow up with us, learn a little bit more about our work and then connect with us around any questions or strategies that might be helpful for the work in supporting these efforts to engage faith and community-based organizations. I hope that was all helpful. Sam, I'll turn it back over to you.

Sam: Thank you so much, Ben. I think those reflections on the importance of the faith-based early care and education providers really helps highlight how we can engage a variety of different options for parents that they're really choosing and really strategies we have to think about being cognizant of as we engage different groups into our early care and education systems as well.

Thank you to all of our panelists across the five different programs from across ACF for sharing about how your administrators of your programs can really hone in on improving school choice for young children and their families. It looks like we have time for a question or two. I'm going to just start with one question. It looks like this one's for you, Maggie.

Can you talk a little bit ... You did talk a little bit about the importance and the ways that faith-based providers can engage with CCDF funds. I'm wondering if you can talk a little bit about the strategies that faith-based providers can be financed with CCDF funds, talking about vouchers, certificates, but also contracts or other strategies states may be using to fund early childhood, early care and education centers.

Maggie: Sure. That's a great question. In the CCDF program, families can receive childcare subsidies through either a voucher or certificate, or through a grant or contracted slot. Actually, about 96% of childcare subsidies are provided through vouchers to the family. There are some differences for faith-based providers between vouchers and grants and contracts that we just want to make sure folks are aware of.

One difference is if a faith-based provider receives CCDF funds as a grant or contract to provide direct childcare services, that childcare provider is then restricted from using the funds for religious purposes or activities, including worship or instruction. Again, those restrictions are only tied to receiving CCDF funds through grants or contracts.

On the flip side, if states want to support CCDF participation for faith-based providers, they're encouraged to conduct outreach and expand the flexibility available to faith-based providers accepting CCDF vouchers. By accepting vouchers, faith-based providers are able to serve CCDF eligible children in a way that respects the beliefs and values. The parents are kind of using that voucher to choose the faith-based provider, and therefore the religious instruction is allowed. I did want to just mention one other thing.

There was a question I saw in the chat about ... someone asked if faith-based providers have always qualified for CCDF. We wanted to reiterate, yes, faith-based providers have always been eligible to accept CCDF assistance as long as they meet the CCDF health and safety requirements. This guidance just reminds and sort of reinforces those flexibilities to make sure that our lead agencies are aware of the flexibilities they have to use CCDF quality funds and other funds to support faith-based providers.

Sam: Thank you so much, Maggie. One more question. This one for you, Deborah, and your office, the Office of Family Assistance. You did share as you were talking that states may use TANF funds for the cost of wraparound services, for paying for an extended day after-school childcare for low-income children.

I'm hoping you can ... Similar question to Maggie's. If you can talk a little bit about the ways that states can use these financing strategies using TANF. If you can talk a little bit about the transfer of dollars to the CCDF program and also ways that this can be done through vouchers or individual children or grants or contracts with the service agencies directly for states that may want to use TANF funds to support childcare services.

Deborah: Yeah, thanks. The answer is basically yes to all of the above. A state may choose to invest TANF funds to pay for extended day and after-school services for low-income children, either by a direct TANF voucher or a grant or contract to a service provider, or it can transfer the funds to the CCDF program for this purpose.

There are a variety of options there. I did see in the Q&A question about whether the after-school program has to be licensed in order to receive TANF funds. There's no federal regulations ... Laws around that, so that would be at the state. There may be some state guidelines around that. But on the federal end, you know, a state can choose which providers to provide with TANF funds. As long as it meets a TANF purpose, there wouldn't be regulations around the licensing on that piece.

Sam: That's great. Thank you so much for that information. Can I ask you to clarify ... Can the transfer for the vouchers ... If states have previous year funds that they're carrying over, is that available for both the transfer and the vouchers? Can you clarify that? I know many states have asked that question.

Deborah: Yeah, so the transfer from TANF to CCDF can only be done with the current year block grant funds. It's a maximum of 30 percent of that current year of block grant funds. States can carry over their TANF funds from year to year, and they could use that for the wraparound services but not for the transfer to CCDF. Thanks for that clarification.

Sam: Thank you so much, Deborah. I know a number of states have asked, and I want to make sure everyone was clear on that point and wanted to take this opportunity to do so. Again, thank you to everyone for your time and participation and expertise that you contributed to this call and the development of the guidance.

We just really just appreciate so deeply the commitment that you have in supporting Parent Choice and making sure that children have a range of options of early care and education choices. We're going to close out with a closing poll in a moment, but I'd like to take the last few moments here to share some federal resources that are available that our team had put together to support your work as you're engaging on this. A brief overview of the resources. I know that the slides were put into the chat, and so you have all of these with the links and the ability to click on them yourselves.

But wanted to just give you a highlight of what's on your screen here. The first one here you'll see is a resource to help find childcare options through resources at childcare.gov. This does provide all the options in your state or territory and ability to find the childcare options, learn ... The second resource we'd like to highlight is the CDC Milestone Tracker app that has ... It also has printed and online checklists that were created to help families observe and celebrate the milestones of their child's development.

Families can follow their child's development and find tips and activities for each age. Early education providers across the mixed delivery system ... All types of providers can use this app with children and families and help support families in really knowing what to expect next from their child's growth and development. It really helps ... Is a tool that I know has helped support children and families and their providers work together in understanding how the child is developing, ways to support a child and even steps to take if there are any questions or developmental concerns.

I also want to highlight the CDC's Learn the Signs and Act Early. The program has free resources to help families and early childhood providers explore the program's website that has easy to use training, quick guides and tips for working families that are tailored specifically to early childhood providers. We hope you'll check out this resource and use these as you are engaging with families in your own context.

Next, we wanted to highlight the Department of Education funds the Parent Training and Information Centers, also known as the PTICs, which serve as a central resource across each state for families of children with disabilities. The center really empowers families to make informed choices for their children's education and development.

I know there were some questions in the chat about supporting families with children with disabilities specifically. I hope you'll check this out for young children and ways that you might be able to work for families in your own context with them. Finally wanted to point out some of the resources available at HeadStart.gov.

There are some great resources and tools here that may be relevant for all kinds of early care and education providers, not just Head Start, to support some of the recommendations that Tala mentioned, to talk ... That really think about engaging families in designing the program that fit with their family's needs and choosing their preferences.

Resources also look at building coalitions across early care and education system to really help make sure that families have access to all of their choices and that the providers know how to refer and support families in making the choices that best meet their family needs. Here at ACF, we look forward to continue to support your ongoing efforts in this area. You have some resources, some contact information on the slide. We look forward to seeing how you take these strategies and build out new efforts to support families in making decisions about their children's early care and education. Again, some key contacts here that we talked about today.

Looking forward to hearing from you, thinking through ways that we can continue to support you in enhancing parent choice and ensuring that children have the kinds of care that can set them on the path of success from the very start. Have a great day and thank you so much for all of your support. Sorry.

Finally, we want to hear more from you and how we can support your work. Please use this QR code and use this poll to share your thoughts from today so we can inform our work going forward and really help make sure future efforts are targeted to the kind of support that you can use on the ground in your own state or community or in the programs that you are working with. Again, thank you so much for being here today. Looking forward to continued engagement with you all.