The Child Care and Early Education Research Connections award will support a recipient as a trusted source for research and policy related information for the child care and early education field., The focus will be on improving access to research information to support Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) lead agency staff and their partners. The recipient will establish and operate a resource website for the Child Care and Early Education Research Connections library database (hereafter referred to as Research Connections). The interactive website (http://www.researchconnections.org) will house a comprehensive and up-to-date database of resources derived from rigorous research, including scholarly peer-reviewed research and gray literature (e.g., rigorous research published as policy briefs, state and federal government reports, foundation reports), as well as relevant publicly available assessment instruments. Research should be relevant to community based child care serving children birth through 13-years, child care and early education (CCEE) programs, home-based child care, family child care, Head Start, public pre-kindergarten (Pre-K), and after-school programs.The recipient will engage in continuous expansion of the research database, marketing and outreach, and efforts to increase the fields use of the evidence base. The award is expected to be for a 60-month project period, with five 12-month budget periods. The ceiling for the first budget period is $800,000. It is expected that the 12-month budget periods for each subsequent year (years 2-5) will not exceed $800,000 each.
