Beginning in the summer of 2025, the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP) engaged with the California Department of Social Services (CDSS) to support a workgroup of administrators of the California Work Opportunity and Responsibility to Kids (CalWORKs) Child Care program. CalWORKs Child Care is a critical supportive service associated with California’s Welfare-to-Work program. It is funded by Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) dollars and the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF), as well as supplemental state funding.  

Since 1997, CalWORKs Child Care has had three stages designed to provide care and to facilitate paths to self-sufficiency for CalWORKs participants. Stage One is currently administered by county welfare departments, and Stages Two and Three shift the family’s child care from county social service and welfare offices to Alternative Payment Programs (APPs), contracted organizations that administer child care vouchers. 

The focus of the workgroup was to solicit feedback on factors that would be important for the state to understand when considering consolidation of the existing program. The administrator workgroup was established to enable CDSS and the State to learn from the expertise and experience of the counties and child care contractors to create a program that is more supportive for families and easier to administer—giving administrators more time to focus on the families they serve. The workgroup aimed to elicit insights and ideas using various feedback strategies, with the goal of informing a consolidation proposal for CDSS. 

This report, drafted by CLASP, reviews the context for how the workgroup was initiated, outlines the feedback that was elicited in the workgroup, offers considerations and insights from CLASP based on the workgroup’s feedback, and documents the work materials from the group.  

>>View the report here.