# Presentation: 840966

## Full Day Services:  Head Start/Child Care Collaborations

***Kathy Whelan***
***Louise Gill***

## Full Day Services:  Head Start/Child Care Collaborations

- Eligibility
- Charging Fees for “Child Care”
- Parent Co-Pays

## Eligibility

**Regulation: 1305.4 Age of Children and Family Income Eligibility (c)  ***The family income must be verified by the Head Start program before determining that a child is eligible to participate in the program*.

***ACYF-PI-HS-99-06****:  *“*In determining a family Head Start eligibility, grantees should consider a family as receiving *_***public assistance***_* if the family is receiving benefits or service, *_***funded under the authority of the TANF program which are being provided on a regular (i.e., not episodic) basis***_***”.***

## What Programs Should Consider with Eligibility: 

- *  What is my program doing to verify income?
- *  What is YOUR STATE’s definition of TANF Services?
- *  What documents are my staff examining?
- *  How is our enrollment form designed to justify   eligibility and describe documents examined?
- *  Is my staff trained appropriately?
- *  Is my program verifying income on all families _first_?

## Charging Fees for “Child Care”

**Regulation:  1305.9 Policy on fees** “*A Head Start program must not prescribe any fee schedule or otherwise provide for the charging of any fees for participation in the program.  If the family of a child determined to be eligible for participation by a Head Start program *_***volunteers to pay***_* part or all of the costs of the child’s participation, the Head Start program may accept the voluntary payments and record the payments as program income.  Under no circumstances shall a Head Start program *_*solicit, encourage*__, __*or in any other way condition*_* a child’s enrollment or participation in the program upon the payment of a fee.”*

## What Programs Should Consider When Charging Fees for “Child Care” : 

- *   Are you serving the neediest families?  What do your wait lists and community assessment tell you?
- *  How many families are paying for full-day services?

- *  How are parents and community assured that there is not a charge for participation in the Head Start program?
-   * Are you only accepting fees from parents who volunteer to pay?

## What Programs Should Consider When Charging Fees for “Child Care” :

- Do you have approval from the Regional Office (Grant Application), the Policy Council and the Governing Board?
- What are the fees based on?

- How have you described your fee methods in your program’s written policies and procedures?
- How often are you revisiting/approving your policies and procedures to assure they are still appropriate for your families?

## Parent Co-Pays

**ACYF-IM-HS-01-13 Budgeting; Collaboration; Child Care; Partnerships**: *“The revenue (from child care subsidy) expected is not program income to the Head Start program and no portion of it, including parent co-pay, may be counted as non-Federal share.  Head Start grantees may not pay the co-pay for parents who have difficulty making payment.  Doing so would violate a basic tenet of the CCDF and the cost is not allowable under the Head Start programs (However, failure to make the co-payment should not result in denial of services.  While eligibility for the child care subsidy might end, the child remains eligible for Head Start services as provided for in 45 CFR Part* *1305.7”*

## What Programs Should Consider with Parent Co-Pays :

- * Is your program *paying* co-payments for parents?
- * What is your system for Full Day option when families lose subsidy?  30-day transitions?  Part-Day?  Transition to Other Child Care?
- * How do you determine who pays and who doesn’t?
- * What are your written policies and procedures?

## Questions?