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Support programs & providers with grants from COVID relief funds thru the Child Care Protection Plan

In response to the Coronavirus global pandemic, NICCA has created the Child Care Protection Plan to help tribal, and, if desired, state, CCDF programs meet the needs of child care providers across their service areas. Using your own COVID-19 relief dollars provided through the CARES Act, you can use this customizable toolkit to establish your own grantmaking program.


Through this effort, tribal programs can focus on the providers serving American Indian/Alaska Native families within their service area. If coordinating with states, this allows for a clearer delineation of supports to allow their state counterparts to focus their efforts on providers outside of the tribes' reach. The goal is to eliminate duplication of efforts and further stretch the available resources for child care to cast a wider net and, hopefully, limit the permanent loss of child care providers and services across the nation.


Child Care Protection Plan: Overview

Nationally, $3.5 billion was provided to states and tribes for this effort. During this national state of emergency, the state and tribes have an opportunity to collaborate and build on the relationships that already exist throughout the state. This collaborative effort would:


  • Ensure that resources are not duplicated across child care programs, in centers, or in homes by sharing information between the state and tribes;

  • Support a wider breadth of reach for the COVID stimulus dollars to ensure that as many providers can receive support as possible;

  • Promote information sharing of the programs, centers, and homes that have received supports, including identifying, when possible, those that have received outside supports, such as those from the Small Business Administration;

  • Ultimately, serve as a model for the entire nation in implementing an SBA-like grant support program for child care programs and businesses.


Child Care Protection Plan: A Grantmaking Toolkit

Download a fully customizable toolkit to create your own grant program. The toolkit includes all you need to build a successful grantmaking effort to support child care programs. It contains:



Click below to download the Child Care Protection Plan.



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