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The Benefits of the Child Care Food Program

The Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP) is a key source of support for family childcare homes, childcare centers and Head Start programs. The program provides reimbursement for food and meal preparation cost, ongoing training in the nutritional needs of children and food safety, and onsite assistance in meeting the program's nutritional requirements. CACFP is administered at the national level by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. At the state level, the Vermont Department of Education Child Nutrition Program is the administrator for childcare centers and, through local sponsoring organizations, to family childcare providers. Across the country, nearly 46,000 childcare centers and 152,000 family childcare providers working with 1,211 sponsors use the Child and Adult Care Food Program to provide high quality nutrition and learning experiences for 3 million children.

The Child and Adult Care Food Program is a well-documented success:

• The Families and Work Institute's Study of Children in Family Child Care and Relative Care, cited participation in the Child Care Food Program as one of the major factors influencing quality care, reporting that 87 percent of the family child care homes considered to be providing good quality child care participated in the Child and Adult Care Food Program.
  
• The Journal of the American Dietetic Association published a study, Dietary Intake of Children In Urban Day Care Centers, comparing the intake of children at a center using CACFP versus a nonparticipating center and found that children at the CACFP center had significantly higher intakes of many key nutrients, including protein, minerals, and vitamins, and consumed significantly more servings of milk and vegetables, with fewer servings of fats and sweets, than the children at the non- participating center. Children from the participating center also had fewer days of illness than children from the non-participating center.

The Child and Adult Care Food Program is a key building block because of its importance in maintaining and creating quality affordable child care, which allows children to develop fully, prepares them to enter school "ready-to-learn", and assists low-income parents in maintaining employment.

For more information, contact Portia Cornell, Nutrition Program Outreach & Policy Specialist.