Enhancing quality and expanding availability of early care and education services in the District is key to DC CCC’s mission. DC CCC collaborates with the Office of the State Superintendent of Education and other partners to provide a wide-range of business supports to child development centers’ and homes’ staff and administrators in the District.
By connecting early childhood professionals to an array of professional development opportunities; highlighting best practices in the field; and sharing funding opportunities, DC CCC’s commitment to support the District’s early childhood workforce is clear. A comprehensive overview of business supports available to child development facilities and homes is available here.
New Opportunities
OSSE has partnered with the Low Income Investment Fund (LIIF) to administer three multi-year grant programs supporting the District’s child care sector during the coronavirus (COVID-19) recovery: the Access to Quality Child Care Grant, Back-to-Work Child Care Grant and DC Child Care Stabilization Targeted Grant. Facilities may only participate in one of these grant programs. To determine if a facility is eligible and which grant program is most appropriate for the facility to participate in, the facility must complete and submit the general intake form hosted by LIIF.
- Access to Quality Child Care Grant: The Access to Quality Child Care Grant is a $10 million program that provides support to current and future child development facility operators to expand, open and improve new and existing child development facilities. LIIF will administer sub-grants to eligible child development facilities. Several sub-grant types are:
- Back-to-Work Child Care Grant: The Back-to-Work Child Care grant will provide additional financial assistance to preserve the supply of child development facilities in neighborhoods most impacted by COVID-19 through the District’s pandemic recovery. It will provide funding to facilities in COVID-impacted neighborhoods that have sustained financial losses during the pandemic to allow them to remain in operation, return to full capacity/enrollment, make open spaces available for families returning to work and limit tuition increases for families. LIIF will also provide business support and technical assistance to participating child care providers to help them increase enrollment, develop business and sustainability plans to ensure their facility’s ability to continue serving families following the end of the grant period, and make changes to their program or operations needed to improve financial sustainability or program quality.
- DC Child Care Stabilization Targeted Grant: In 2023 OSSE launched the DC Child Care Stabilization Grant to provide financial relief to child development facilities for unexpected business costs associated with the pandemic and help stabilize their operations and preserve the supply of child care for children and families. OSSE partnered with LIIF, the Washington Area Community Investment Fund (Wacif), Hurley & Associates and the United Planning Organization (UPO) to disburse funds to eligible child development facilities and began disbursing funds in early 2022. In FY23, LIIF will support OSSE to disburse additional DC Child Care Stabilization Grant funds through a separate process to child development facilities that have additional needs that were not covered by their initial awards, and who are not receiving financial assistance through the Access to Quality Child Care Grant or Back-to-Work Child Care Grant.
Contact For questions about Child Care Grants, please email childcareDC@liifund.org.
Learn more about other grant opportunities.