Along with the National Children’s Facilities Network (NCFN), LIIF plays a leadership role in advocating for the creation of a pool of federal funds for technical assistance, business planning and renovation and expansion of child care facilities. LIIF participated in the Bipartisan Policy Center’s (BPC) May 22 event, From the Ground Up: Improving Child Care and Early Learning Facilities, where a comprehensive set of congressional recommendations was unveiled to invest in child care facilities needs. LIIF strongly supports the congressional recommendations outlined by the BPC.
On December 2, 2019, LIIF submitted a comment letter to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Administration for Children and Families (ACF), in response to the request for information (RFI) on “Improving Access to Affordable, High Quality Child Care.” Our letter emphasized that facilities are a critical part of the broader ECE conversation and are directly tied to the quality of a program and the health and safety of children and workers. Yet there is currently no dedicated source of federal funding for ECE facilities, which creates barriers to providers entering and staying in the market. Federal resources for investing in child care facilities – including dedicated support for technical assistance and capacity building – will be most effectively accomplished if done through an intermediary structure.
