Many early care and education (ECE) system and program leaders use or bring together multiple funding sources to meet the total cost of delivering high-quality, comprehensive services. Other related terms in the field include braided, blended, layered, stacked, combining, or coordinated funding. Although each of these terms implies a slightly different funding approach, this project uses “bringing together” as an umbrella term to encompass all the various ways ECE systems and program leaders may use funds from multiple sources.
The decision to bring together multiple sources of funding—and the ability to do so while meeting all funding source requirements—may be influenced by factors at different levels of the ECE system. In addition, the use of multiple funding sources may have critical implications for program quality, access, and outcomes for young children and their families and the ECE workforce. Yet there is limited evidence about the national prevalence of ECE programs’ use of multiple funding sources, the reasons why programs do so, the strategies and supports available for bringing together funding sources at different levels of ECE systems, the policies that may encourage or inhibit the use of more than one funding source, and in what ways the use of multiple funding sources may be associated with quality, access, and outcomes.
The Financing for Early Care and Education (ECE) Quality and Access for All (F4EQ) project seeks to better understand the landscape of Head Start programs’ decision-making around the use of multiple funding sources as well as the state and local contexts and conditions that inform those decisions, including systems-level approaches, structures, and supports that may shape approaches to the use of multiple funding sources. These systems-level approaches, structures, and supports may be at the federal, state, regional, county, or local level and may include financing policy requirements (e.g., regulations, standards) and enabling conditions (e.g., governance structures, funding source policy alignment, partnerships, mindsets, and political context).
The project includes a nationwide descriptive study of financing in Head Start programs and the state- and local-level ECE financing contexts in which programs make those decisions. The descriptive study includes (a) surveys of Head Start program directors and state ECE administrators and (b) case studies that together will address four primary research questions:
- What funding approaches do Head Start programs use to support the cost of delivering high quality, comprehensive services?
- How are Head Start programs’ funding approaches related to program implementation and outcomes?
- What system-level approaches, structures, and supports around bringing together multiple funding sources are being implemented?
- How do system-level approaches, structures, and supports identified in Research Question 3 inform Head Start programs’ (a) use of multiple funding sources, (b) integration within broader ECE systems, and (c) program implementation and outcomes?
To date, the project team has completed a review of the existing knowledge base, conducted an environmental scan of policies and regulations around bringing together multiple ECE funding sources at the state and program levels, interviewed key informants, and consulted with technical experts. Those activities informed the design of the first nationwide surveys of Head Start program directors and state ECE systems leaders examining financing policies and practices, which were fielded in early 2024.
The project’s case studies, projected to begin in 2025, are designed to supplement the state- and program-level surveys by providing a more detailed and nuanced picture of on-the-ground ECE funding approaches and decision making.
The resulting insights from this multimethod descriptive study will generate beneficial knowledge about Head Start programs’ use of multiple funding sources, Head Start programs’ integration within broader ECE systems, and the state and local structures, supports, policy requirements, and enabling conditions under which ECE financing decisions are made and implemented. Furthermore, findings from this project may inform decisions about the allocation and flow of public resources, the availability and provision of supports for bringing together different funding sources, and the design and implementation of more effective ECE policies, systems, and programs.
