Military Child Care in Your Neighborhood PLUS, a fee assistance program funded by the U.S. Department

of Defense, launches in March, providing Arkansas military families with access to high-quality child care.

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (April 3, 2023) – Better Beginnings, a program of the Arkansas Department of Human Services Division of Child Care and Early Childhood Education focusing on giving children the best quality care, announces the statewide launch of Military Child Care in Your Neighborhood PLUS (MCCYN-PLUS), an expansion of the existing military fee assistance program benefitting military families in Arkansas. 

MCCYN-PLUS is funded by the United States Department of Defense. The program helps ensure active-duty, National Guard, and reserve service members activated on orders, recruiters, and other geographically dispersed service members and their families have access to high-quality child care in their community when on-installment child care isn’t available. This program also brings more options to the 400,000 children of active-duty service members under the age of five by reducing the out-of-pocket expense of community child care.

“This is an exciting opportunity for Arkansas to bring high-quality child care to more families,” said Better Beginnings Program Administrator Kelli Hilburn. “This program encourages providers to increase their quality. When quality is increased, working parents will be more productive at work, and our military families will have the peace of mind they need to continue serving our country.”

Child care providers can apply to participate in this program which is being administered by Child Care Aware of America. To qualify, providers must meet Arkansas’s minimum licensing standards and be rated a Better Beginnings star level four or higher. Eligible military members can request child care options at Military Child Care.com.

Arkansas is one of 10 states where MCCYN-PLUS, which first launched in 2019, is available. Child care providers interested in applying or learning more can visit https://www.childcareaware.org/.

For more information about the importance of high-quality child care in Arkansas or to learn more about Better Beginnings, follow their social media channels on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter or ARBetterBeginnings.com. Sign up for the Better Beginnings Buzz to receive resources like these in your inbox each month.

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About Arkansas Better Beginnings:

Better Beginnings is Arkansas’s tiered quality rating and improvement system for child care, early education and school-age programs that have gone above and beyond the state minimum requirements. Better Beginnings is administered by the Arkansas Department of Human Services Division of Child Care and Early Childhood Education. Better Beginnings connects Arkansas families with the information and care that helps children experience a safe, happy, and healthy childhood.