Thanks to additional funding to expand services and provide subsidies to those in need, there has been a 6% rise in available child care services over the past year, according to data released Tuesday by United Way of Connecticut’s 211 Child Care.
Officials praised the efforts of Gov. Ned Lamont for investments made in early childhood, according to Beth Bye, commissioner of the Connecticut Office of Early Childhood.
“By increasing provider rates and expanding access for Early Start CT and Care 4 Kids, we are making measurable strides toward ensuring affordable, high-quality child care is within reach for more Connecticut families,” Bye said in a prepared release.
Staff from United Way of Connecticut/211 Child CareData collected data through surveys of child care providers and through information provided by the Office of Early Childhood, while DataHaven, a New Haven-based nonprofit, consulted.
The group unveiled its 2025 interactive map where people can see a point-in-time snapshot of capacity, enrollments, and openings available at any given moment throughout the state. Users can search the 211 Child Care website for child care providers.
Over the past year, officials said, the state provided subsidies for infant/toddler slots as well as expanded programs serving infants and toddlers. The Office of Early Childhood also recently adopted changes to licensing ratios and group sizes in child care centers so they can accommodate more 2-year-olds with the same staff.
“Giving programs the flexibility to enroll more toddlers without needing to hire additional staff allowed programs to offer more slots to this age group,” said Sherri Sutera, senior vice president of Child Care Services for the United Way of Connecticut, in the release.
Care 4 Kids – a program sponsored by the state’s Office of Early Childhood that assists low to moderate income families pay for child care costs – also provided 23,000 subsidies, an increase of 3,000 from the previous year, according to Sutera.
Demand on preschool programs is increasing because of the children who have to spend an extra year in preschool following a legislative change that pushed up the cutoff date for their eligibility to enter kindergarten.
Starting July 2024, children who turn 5 by Sept. 1 can proceed to kindergarten. The old rule was January 1, so the demand increased by some 11,500 children, according to Sutera.
“The survey results show that many center-based programs have reallocated their slots from school age to preschool to meet the demand for full-day preschool care,” Sutera said.
However, there is work to do, officials said.
The state’s licensed family child care homes and centers are now at 80% capacity, but even with that increase in available programs, officials said there are more than 30,000 authorized child care slots that are not available.
Finding qualified staff for what programs can afford to pay is a constant issue, and families are still struggling to pay for child care, according to the United Way.
The number of families identified as ALICE (Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed) – households that earn above the Federal Poverty Level (FPL) but still struggle to afford the cost of living in their counties – grew between 2021 and 2022 by 9,657 or to 29% of all households, according to the ALICE report issued in 2024. Yet, that report states, ALICE families often don’t qualify for public assistance.
There is proposed legislation, SB 1, through which lawmakers want to create a Universal Preschool Trust, where money left over in the General Fund would be put at the end of each fiscal year, to help qualifying families pay for preschool.