Child Care and Early Education Research Connections

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The Administration for Children and Families has funding available for a cooperative agreement to support a grantee as a trusted source for research and policy related information for the child care and early education field. The grantee will establish and operate a website for the Child Care and Early Education Research Connections database (hereafter referred to as “Research Connections”). The interactive website (http://www.researchconnections.org) will house a comprehensive and up-to-date database of resources derived from rigorous research including scholarly peer-reviewed research and ‘gray’ literature (i.e., rigorous research published as policy briefs, state and federal government reports, foundation reports, etc.) and publicly available assessment instruments relevant to child care and early education policy and practice (i.e., community based child care serving children birth through 13-years, Early Care and Education (ECE) programs, home-based child care, family child care, Head Start, public Pre-kindergarten (Pre-K), and after-school programs). The grantee will engage in vigorous marketing of the research database; outreach to gather feedback and improve the database, the site and other products; and development of high quality products to improve utilization of the site and of the evidence base. Research Connections will collaborate to gather feedback, identify the latest research and resources available; and note research needs of the state, territory and tribal administrators of the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) program and child care and early education researchers. Research Connections may pursue this information through collaboration with child care and education research organizations and agencies that promote the use of the research base to improve the quality and promote equal access to those programs; strengthen the supply of care and education to support parental employment, training and education; and inform the development and implementation of system-level approaches to coordination of program services for children and families (e.g., Child Care and Early Education Policy Research Consortium (CCEEPRC); Child Care Research and Evaluation Capacity Building Center (CCRECBC); other U.S. Department of Human Services (HHS), Administration for Children and Families (ACF) Child Care and Head Start Technical Assistance Centers). In addition, the grantee will attend key meetings to pursue their goals (e.g., Office of Child Care’s (OCC) annual State and Territories Administrators Meeting (STAM); CCEEPRC annual meeting; Annual Early Childhood Training and Technical Assistance System All Hands Meeting (hosted by ACF) and ACF’s National Research Conference on Early Childhood (NRCEC)]. The site may be based on an established platform or may be newly developed. It is expected that, at the latest, the Research Connections beta site will launch by March 2021 and that the site will be fully operational on or before June 2021. The award is expected to be for a 60-month project period, with five 12-month budget periods. The ceiling for the first budget period is $1,000,000. It is expected that the 12-month budget period for each subsequent year (years 2-5) will not exceed $750,000 each.

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