July 22 -- The Office of Child Care, Administration for Children and Families (ACF), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), is proposing to collect data for a new collection, ACF-901—American Rescue Plan (ARP) Stabilization Grants Provider-Level Data. The data collection will provide numbers and characteristics of child care providers receiving ARP Act stabilization grant awards. ACF invites public comments by September 20, 2021.
The American Rescue Plan (ARP) Act included approximately $24 billion funding for child care stabilization grants to stabilize the child care sector and do so in a way that builds back a stronger child care system that supports the developmental and learning needs of children, meets parents’ needs and preferences with equal access to high-quality child care, and supports a professionalized workforce that is fairly and appropriately compensated for the essential skilled work that they do. Lead Agencies must spend stabilization funds as subgrants to qualified child care providers to support the stability of the child care sector during and after the COVID-19 public health emergency.
The Office of Child Care (OCC) established a new data collection form, the ACF-901 – American Rescue Plan (ARP) Stabilization Grants Provider-Level Data in order to collect information about the numbers and characteristics of child care providers receiving stabilization grant awards, including whether funds have been distributed equitably and are reaching historically underserved communities. All Lead Agencies in the States, the District of Columbia, and Territories (Puerto Rico, American Samoa, Guam, Northern Marianna Islands, and the U.S. Virgin Islands) are responsible for collecting and reporting provider-level stabilization grants data (ACF-901). Lead Agencies report the ACF-901 data quarterly, due 30 days after the end each quarter (i.e., October to December data will be due January 30). States submit their provider-level records electronically to the Child Care Automated Reporting System (currently under development).
OCC plans to provide additional technical format guidance to states and territories in the form of a Technical Bulletin, which will describe the format of each data element (such as, guidance on the format of a date field, or the length of a numeric field).
Draft ACF-901:
https://www.acf.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/documents/occ/Draft_ACF-901_American_Rescue_Plan_%28ARP%29_Stabilization_Grants_Provider-Level_Data.pdf
FR notice inviting comments:
https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2021/07/22/2021-15606/proposed-information-collection-activity-acf-901-american-rescue-plan-arp-stabilization-grants
Point of contact: Moniquin Huggins, Director, Accountability and Oversight, OCC (202) 690-8490 moniquin.huggins@acf.hhs.gov
