For Alabama families, child care policy shapes the ability to maintain employment, pursue education, and provide stability for their children. For providers, it influences whether they can retain staff, meet operating expenses, and keep their doors open. The relationships among those administering public programs and those working alongside communities are therefore consequential: they help connect policy decisions to the realities those decisions create.

 

That shared responsibility brought an Alabama state team to “Stronger Together: Advancing Child Care Through Collaboration,” a national convening hosted by the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP) and the National Women’s Law Center (NWLC), September 28–30 in Herndon, Virginia.

 

Representing Alabama were Lenice C. Emanuel, Executive Director of the Alabama Institute for Social Justice (AISJ); Dr. Christine Spear, Director of STEM Education at the Alabama Expanded Learning Alliance, also representing VOICES for Alabama's Children; Bernard Houston, Administrator for Childcare Services and Workforce Development at the Alabama Department of Human Resources (DHR); and ShunDria Robinson, DHR’s Licensing Administrator.

 

The convening focused on the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF), a central source of federal support for child care assistance and quality improvement. In Alabama, DHR administers CCDF through its Child Care Services Division, helping eligible families afford care while they work or participate in education and training. Its responsibilities also include quality initiatives and the licensing and monitoring of child care programs. Together, these functions connect family access, provider participation, and the standards that support children’s safety and well-being.

 

Alabama’s recent experience underscores the pressures facing this system. In May, DHR announced a child care assistance waiting list for new applications received on or after May 8, 2026, with exceptions for designated priority categories. The department cited demand and the availability of funded slots. The waiting list illustrates a fundamental challenge: families’ need for assistance can exceed the resources available to provide it.
For a parent, waiting for assistance can complicate the practical arrangements required to accept a job or remain employed. For a provider, a family’s ability to afford care can influence enrollment and revenue. These connections make funding decisions consequential across the system—and reinforce the need to consider family affordability and provider stability together.

 

The federal policy environment adds another layer of responsibility. A 2026 CCDF final rule removed federal requirements concerning the 7 percent cap on family copayments, advance payments to providers, enrollment-based payments, and certain uses of grants and contracts to support child care supply. States retain the option to continue these approaches. The changes place greater weight on state decisions about how to support affordability, structure payments, and sustain access within available resources.

 

Against this backdrop, the convening offered Alabama’s team an opportunity to examine these challenges across institutional roles. Sessions addressed federal developments, child care and Head Start regulations, program integrity, and the tradeoffs associated with limited funding. Learning alongside other states broadened the conversation about possible responses and future directions.

 

Dedicated state team sessions provided time to deepen mutual understanding, identify areas for collaboration, and consider next steps. Each teammate brought knowledge essential to that exchange: the responsibilities of administering assistance, the demands of licensing, the importance of expanded learning, and the experiences of providers and families navigating the system.

 

Working across these perspectives matters because a policy’s effectiveness depends on how it operates in practice. Clear communication can help surface implementation challenges, clarify requirements, and identify where families or providers encounter barriers. Community knowledge can inform administrative understanding, while insight into agency responsibilities can strengthen advocacy and make proposed solutions more practical.

 

For AISJ, this work is inseparable from racial, gender, and economic justice. Questions of affordability, compensation, and access are especially consequential for Black women working in and relying on the care economy, as well as rural communities and families with limited incomes. Their experiences must remain central to the assessment of whether child care policies are delivering the stability and opportunity they promise. Collaboration also requires candor about what relationships alone can accomplish. Better coordination can improve how a system functions; sustained public investment determines its capacity to reach more families and support the providers serving them. Alabama needs continued attention to both.

 

AISJ is grateful to CLASP and NWLC for creating this opportunity and to its Alabama teammates for their thoughtful engagement. The convening provided valuable time to approach a shared challenge with greater understanding of one another’s work. Carrying that understanding forward can help Alabama make more informed decisions about the child care infrastructure its families, communities, and economy depend on.

 

Check out more photos here.