WASHINGTON STATE CCDBG RESEARCH PLANNING PROJECT

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The Washington State Department of Early Learning (DEL), the designated state lead agency for administration of Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG) funds and programming, will conduct the Washington State CCDBG Research Planning Project. The main goal of the project is to plan to generate new policy-relevant, timely and useful knowledge regarding how implementation of the CCDBG Act of 2014 and Washington's 2015 Early Start Act have 1) impacted continuity of care for children in families receiving subsidy; 2) impacted stability for childcare providers who accept subsidy; and 3) contributed to or prevented disproportionate impacts on vulnerable groups of children and providers. Vulnerable groups include children/families receiving subsidy and childcare providers serving subsidy families in rural areas, those who are non-English speaking, and those from communities of color. The Washington study will make use of administrative data, linking across data sets containing data on subsidy families, children, and providers and those containing provider quality rating data. This planning project will help inform a Phase II application to implement the planned research project. Expected outcomes of the 18-month Phase I project include: 1) Develop a research and evaluation plan to examine implementation of Washington's 2015 Early Start Act specifically as it relates to the desired outcomes of child continuity and provider stability, and to examine outcomes among vulnerable groups in the state; 2) Generate meaningful administrative measures of child continuity and provider stability that may be used as outcome measures for the proposed research as well as incorporated into agency analytics to examine trends over time, geographic variation, and variation within and among identified vulnerable population groups; 3) Increase research capacity within the Washington State Department of Early Learning as well as across state agencies such that the state is able to compete for Phase II funding to implement the research plan; 4) Include the process and findings of the planning grant in the Department's annual Early Start Act progress report to the governor and legislature, providing visibility for the project and opportunity to inform future policy decisions.