Tribal Early Childhood and Family Economic Well-being Research Center (TRC)

forecasted

The Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation (OPRE) anticipates announcing the availability of funds and requesting applications for the Tribal Early Childhood and Family Economic Well-being Research Center (TRC). The TRC will provide leadership, collaboration, and support for culturally responsive and actionable research and evaluation of federal early childhood and family economic well-being initiatives that serve Indigenous communities. The TRC program areas include childcare programs (center-based, home based and family childcare providers), Head Start and Early Head Start programs, home visiting programs, and Tribal TANF and related economic well-being initiatives. The TRC is expected to: (1) serve as a hub for strategically disseminating information and facilitating peer exchange on culturally responsive research, evaluation, and measurement of early childhood programs and family economic well-being initiatives in Indigenous communities; (2) identify and disseminate information on the validity of existing measures of culturally meaningful inputs, implementation processes, and outcomes of shared interest across TRC program areas; (3) further explore, test the validity, and increase the usefulness and adoption within practice settings of culturally grounded measures of shared interest across TRC program areas; (4) engage in and facilitate secondary analyses of extant data from across TRC program areas (e.g., administrative data, accessible national datasets) to better understand community characteristics, implementation processes, and outcomes; (5) provide training and professional development to promote interest and competencies in culturally responsive and actionable research, evaluation, and measurement relevant to early childhood programs and family economic well-being initiatives in Indigenous communities. The TRC will bring together a team with expertise in each of the TRC program areas and will be equipped to engage local Indigenous program administrators and staff and federal staff across all TRC program areas. It is anticipated the project will have a 60-month project period starting September 30, 2025, and ending September 29, 2030, with five 12-month budget periods. The estimated program funding per budget period is $1,000,000.