Page 6 - Strengthening California’s Emergency Child Care Bridge Program

Strengthening California’s Emergency Child Care Bridge
Navigating even one of these systems can be daunting; dealing with both the child welfare and the ECE systems as a new guardian may create additional barriers that seem insurmountable to a caregiver asked to assume care for a foster child Typically, child welfare and ECE
systems operate under diferent regulations with distinct organizational cultures, terminology, requirements, and processes Often, potential caregivers of young foster children must simultaneously (and without advance warning) meet all the licensing requirements, provide basic needs for the child, and find afordable child care
Finding child care through the ECE system more often than not presents various challenges
for families Families must navigate the complex child care system to understand the diferent types of care available (home-based vs center- based, licensed vs unlicensed, publicly subsidized vs unsubsidized), select the right program for their family that is both afordable and accessible, and navigate waitlists and complex enrollment processes Additionally, the cost of child care can be prohibitive for many families Full-time infant care can be over $17,000/ year in center-based programs and almost $12,000/year in home-based programs5 Providing caregivers with support and additional resources to help pay for and navigate the ECE
system may result in more timely placements with kinship caregivers, and when children are immediately placed with relatives, it reduces the stress of first being placed with strangers by providing valuable and necessary stability in an already stressful situation
Bridge Program Description
The Bridge Program works by facilitating coordination between the child welfare and ECE systems, and provides three critical components as a part of the process described in Figure 1 below:
1 Emergency child care vouchers or payments Caregivers may receive a time-limited voucher to help pay for child care costs for foster children
2 Child Care Navigators (CCNs)
a Match the caregiver with a child care provider
b Help the caregiver navigate child welfare and ECE systems to achieve the goals of safety, permanency, and well-being for the child
c Find alternative source of child care funding for children after the Bridge voucher ends
3 Trauma-informed care (TIC) training and coaching Participating ECE providers receive access to trauma-informed care training and coaching to help them meet the unique needs of foster children
5 https://rrnetwork.org/assets/general-files/California-06-20.pdf
6 |2022