“Children Learning, Parents Earning, Communities Growing"

CAPPA's Mission 

To strengthen community based partners created to meet the unique economic, linguistic, cultural and geographical needs of California’s working families’ with the resources to support parents with access to child care and other services needed to remove the barriers of poverty; while supporting a pathway towards self-sufficiency and stability.

CAPPA's Mission Statement: To advocate for, and facilitate family access to, quality child care, supportive services, and early education and development programs.

CAPPA's Values

- Quality: Empowering Alternative Payment agencies to strive for quality and integrity in their delivery of child development services.
- Representation: Helping our members maximize the positive outcomes they have on family well-being.
- Respect: Respecting the needs and commitments of our members to families, children and providers.
- Service: Serving our member agencies as they serve their communities by being accessible and effective.
- Collaboration: Building relationships with an emphasis on listening, candor and confidentiality.
- Diversity: Honoring the diversity of our members and their programs whether large or small, expert or novice, rural or urban, center-based, alternative payment or Resource and Referral
- Communication: To actively communicate with the CAPPA membership, sister organization and vested stakeholders to; provide information, request input and clearly define concerns/issues with members.

CAPPA Policy Principles: Partnering in 2023

“Children Learning, Parents Earning, Communities Growing"

The California Alternative Payment Program Association (CAPPA) was created to serve as a voice for low-income working parents and their children to have access to subsidized child care coordinated by community-based and family friendly agencies. Each agency is uniquely positioned to meet the cultural, linguistic and diverse needs of the families in each of California’s 58 counties. We are committed to work in partnership with the California Department of Education (CDE) to provide families with access to the child care and early education programs needed by working parents and to give children the strongest foundation for lifelong learning. To accomplish this, CAPPA will focus on:

Accessibility: Stabilize and increase funding for families to have access to more child care opportunities.
1. Secure funding within Proposition 98 to ensure that the full early care and education needs of children from birth through 13 are coordinated and met.
2. Increase flexible subsidies so that working families have the choice to access care when needed to support the 24 hour/seven day a week requirements of working parents.
3. Re-establish improved Centralized Eligibility Lists (CEL) to support parental choice and access to mixed delivery system of local subsidized child care and preschool programs. Value all child care and early education providers and centers with rates that recognize the value of their contributions to children, while meeting the financial requirements of operating small businesses as state and local minimum wage increases.

Affordability: Increase provider rates to limit the cost burden for families and reflect the true cost of providing childcare.
1. Use current provider market rate data and update reimbursement ceilings annually to offset the rising cost of child care and limit the cost burden for families.
2. Increase provider rates to reflect the true cost of providing child care and rising minimum wage.
3. Prioritize an increase in the provider workforce that cares for infant and toddlers.

Communities and Partnership: Families and children are most successful when supported by a coordinated network of state, local community and neighborhood stakeholders.
1. Invest in a coordinated support system of public and private nonprofits that believe best outcomes for children, families, and communities occur through strong partnerships and varying areas of expertise.
2. Streamline funding, reduce unfunded mandates, maximize technology and reduce contract barriers in order to create an effective delivery system that values superior operations, program integrity, quality, and maximizes resources allocated in the federal and California child care delivery systems.
3. Provide stable child care for families which in turn provide a stable work force for local employers.
4. Show the data of the working families’ contributions back into the local and statewide economy via taxes through their employment, earnings, and the purchase of child care.
5. Show the data of value of child care provider contributions back into the local and statewide economy via taxes paid as a small business owner, as an employer of staff, and a purchaser of goods.

In order to realize the principles noted above, CAPPA will advocate for:
• Building work force capacity of providers with livable rates that at least are comparable to the minimum wage
• Re-establishing an improved CEL that supports parental choice and access to child care and early education preschool programs that best ensures continuity of care for the child and stability of care for the family when work demands.
• Securing 100,000 additional child care vouchers for the over 1.8 million eligible children unable to access care.
• Realizing a reverse funding trigger to restore needed child care that is cut during times of economic recessions.
• Recognizing community based Alternative Payment Programs (APPs) as a "one-stop" shop of information for families eligible for subsidized child care as well as an information source for other resources such as Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP), transportation, domestic violence, behavioral health, respite, regional centers, parenting & home visits, lending libraries, foster care, medical & mental health and disaster relief and emergency services.
• Mirroring subsidized provider rates and policies to those that reflect those of the private market providers.