Child care is essential for working parents, yet it can easily be the single largest expense in a family budget.  For low to middle-income families, Connecticut’s Care4Kids child care subsidy makes it possible to work and afford child care. 

For the last year and a half the Connecticut Early Childhood Alliance has been leading the fight to keep Care4Kids open.  A recap of the events that have happened with Care4Kids

• In 2015 Congress reauthorized the Child Care Development Block Grant which provides federal funds for Connecticut's Care4Kids program.  The reauthorization made changes to ensure continuity of care and quality of services for children in this program.  However no new funding was added to support these changes.
• In August 2016, Connecticut closed the Care4Kids program to families in Priority Group 4 (families at or below 50% state median income) in order to control costs that were rising because of the federal changes.
• In January 2017, Connecticut closed the Care4Kids program to families in Priority Group 3 (teen mothers) and Priority Group 2 (families recently enrolled in TANF), leaving the program open only to TANF recipients in need of child care.
• From August 2016 to November 2017, Care4Kids was closed to most new applicants.  The program enrollment plummeted from serving 22,957 children down to 13,223.
• In November 2017, the Connecticut General Assembly approved an increase in state funding for Care4Kids and the program was re-opened.
• In March 2018, Congress approved a historic increase in the Child Care Development Block Grant which is expect to add approximately $14 million to Connecticut's Care4Kids program

During the time, the Connecticut Early Childhood Alliance has been producing data analysis, fact sheets, information forums, petitions, news releases, action alerts and more to support the re-opening of Care4Kids.  In April 2018, we provided THIS UPDATE.