Child Care Bureau History
The Child Care Bureau (CCB) was created January 11, 1995 to provide a central focus for federal child care programs. On May 23, 2006, the Child Care Bureau became part of the Office of Family Assistance (OFA) within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Administration for Children and Families.
Combining the Child Care Bureau with the Office of Family Assistance, which administers Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), allows for greater coordination of the child care subsidy program with welfare reform efforts. It is critical that TANF and child care programs work closely together to ensure that States have all the resources and guidance needed to move families currently dependent on cash benefits into the workforce and to prevent families who are not TANF recipients from falling into welfare dependency.
In recent years, the Child Care Bureau has also taken a lead role in implementing President Bush’s Good Start, Grow Smart early learning initiative—which is working to ensure that young children enter kindergarten with the skills they need to succeed. CCB has created strategic partnerships with States to improve early childhood programs through a significant infusion of guidance, training, and technical assistance to promote the development of early learning guidelines, professional development plans, and coordination across early childhood programs. The Bureau has also invested significant resources in research and evaluation to identify effective policies and practices.
As the Federal agency that administers the Child Care and Development Fund, other activities of the Bureau include:
- advising the Director of the Office of Family Assistance on issues regarding child care programs;
- developing legislative, regulatory and budgetary proposals;
- presenting operational planning objectives and initiatives related to child care;
- providing leadership and coordination for child care within the Administration for Children and Families;
- and establishing linkages with other agencies on child care issues, including agencies within HHS, relevant agencies across the federal, state, local governments, tribal governments, and non-government organizations at the federal, state, and local levels.