Supporting a Mixed Delivery Early Childhood Education System

Mixed delivery ECE is the coordinated effort on the part of states, territories, tribes, and local communities to support ECE services across a range of quality settings, building on the strengths and capacity of all provider types, to help meet the varied needs of children and families. In a mixed delivery ECE system, families have their choice of access to affordable, high-quality ECE services across a range of settings, including center-based child care providers, schools, family child care homes, and Head Start funded programs. Effective mixed delivery ECE systems have the potential to offer more choices to serve additional families; reduce the cost of care for families by leveraging public funding; improve the reach and efficiency of state and federal public ECE investments; and offer more seamless, higher quality care to meet comprehensive child development and family work support needs. 

Successfully implementing a mixed delivery ECE system requires careful planning, collaborative decision-making, and coordination of public funding among leaders across Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF), Head Start, state/local preschool, and other funding streams. Key features of a successful mixed delivery ECE system include: 

• Coordinated governance and oversight structures
• Aligned policies across program models and settings
• Coordination of program enrollment across program models and settings
• Coordinated financing approaches (e.g., leveraging multiple funding streams through braiding, layering, and/or blending to improve access to high-quality ECE)
• Early childhood integrated data systems (ECIDS)