HHS News Release

HHS Secretary Donna E. Shalala today announced $10 million in discretionary grants and contracts for child care research. The fiscal year 2000 funding is for research to develop critically needed information on child care and its effects on child development and family well-being. This new research will help develop innovative strategies to meet the needs of low-income families struggling to afford quality child care for their children.

"Increasing our knowledge of what child care systems work best and disseminating that knowledge throughout the country are important steps in improving the quality of child care," said Secretary Shalala. "Parents across America desperately need the answers to these fundamental questions about child care: Can I find it? Can I afford it? Can I trust it?"

The research projects will be administered by HHS' Administration for Children and Families. The $10 million will be allocated between individual project areas and the establishment of a national research collaboration and archive. The individual project areas will be funded at $4.6 million as a result of a national competition held earlier this year. Of those funds, $3.2 million will be awarded for 12 field initiated child care research projects, $1.2 million for four new child care policy research partnerships and $200,000 for five scholarships for doctoral dissertation research.

The HHS Child Care Bureau will establish a National Child Care Research Collaboration and Archive to help improve the quality of child care research, make data more accessible to researchers for analysis, and help key constituencies make better use of research findings. The 30-month contract to develop the collaboration and archive will be awarded by Sept. 30, 2000. The bureau is also funding an interagency collaboration with the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and other federal partners to support development of the science and ecology of early development. This partnership brings together interdisciplinary approaches and multiple partners to better understand the earliest years of life. In addition, the bureau will fund a research fellowship through the Society for Research in Child Development.

"It is our hope that Congress will again appropriate funds for child care research in fiscal year 2001, allowing us to continue the valuable studies launched this year," said Olivia A. Golden, assistant secretary for children and families. "The goal of this initiative is to identify and encourage policies that promote quality, flexibility and availability of child care for low-income families."

With the addition of new research partnerships, the bureau's Child Care Policy Research Consortium will involve nearly half of the states. New partnerships include: Connecticut, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Vermont and Wisconsin. Ongoing partnerships continue in: California, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Oregon and Texas.

The list of awardees follows:

Field Initiated Child Care Research Projects

Bank Street College of Education, New York City, $276,546 for "Assessing the Effectiveness of State and Local Quality Initiatives."

Center for Child Care Workforce, Washington, D.C., $248,932 for "How Many is Enough? Estimating the Size of the U.S. Child Care Workforce."

Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., $254,102 for "Child Care Quality and Consumer Education."

Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation, New York City, $209,807 for "Employment and Child Care: What Can We Learn from Experimental Studies that Encourage Low-Income Parents to Work?"

Temple University, Philadelphia, Pa., $299,358 for "Barriers to Child Care Subsidies."

The Urban Institute, Washington, D.C., $208,369 for "Child Care, Welfare and Families: The Nexus of Policies, Practices, and Systems."

University of California at Berkeley Institute of Industrial Relations, Berkeley, Calif., $300,000 for "Who Leaves? Who Stays? A Longitudinal Study of the Child Care Workforce."

University of Chicago Chapin Hall Center for Children, Chicago, $299,839 for "Child Care Subsidy Use and Self-Sufficiency Pathways of Low-Income Mothers: A Three-State Study."

University of Montana Rural Institute on Disabilities, Missoula, Mont., $237,699 for "Child Care Plus Research Project."

University of North Carolina Frank Porter Graham Child Development Center, Chapel Hill, N.C., $299,576 for "Variations in Child Care and School Success: Longitudinal Follow-up of the Cost, Quality and Outcomes Study."

Wellesley (Mass.) College, $300,000 for "Child Care Today: Cost and Quality of Family Child Care and Infant/Toddler Care."

Zero to Three, Washington, D.C., $300,000 for "A Study of Community Strategies for Enhancing the Quality and Affordability of Infant Toddler Child Care for Low Income Families."

Child Care Policy Research Partnerships

Midwest Child Care Research Partnership, lead partner is the University of Nebraska, $300,000.

Minnesota Child Care Research Partnership, lead partner is the Minnesota
Department of Children, Families & Learning, $300,000.

"New Partners," lead partner is the University of Southern Maine, $300,000.

Wisconsin Child Care Research Partnership, lead partner is the University of Wisconsin, $300,000.

Scholarships for Doctoral Dissertation Research

The grants for doctoral dissertation research go to individual Ph.D. candidates at: Harvard College, $39,900; Rice University, $40,000; University of Arizona, $40,000; University of North Carolina, $39,919; and the University of Wisconsin, $37,893.

Note: All HHS press releases, fact sheets and other press materials are available at http://www.hhs.gov/news.

Contact: Michael Kharfen, (202) 401-9215