Food Stamp Program | National School Lunch Program
School Breakfast Program | Summer Food Service Program
WIC | CACFP | TEFAP

Sponsoring Organizations
An Essential Link To Quality Affordable Child Care

The Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP) provides federal reimbursement for nutrition in child care centers, Head Start programs and afterschool programs and for preschool child care in family child care homes. The program is administered at the national level by the U. S. Department of Agriculture. At the state level the State Department of Education or Child Nutrition administers the program through local CACFP sponsoring organizations to family child care providers.(1) A family child care home is a licensed child care program that takes place in a provider's home.

CACFP sponsoring organizations, "sponsors," are nonprofits that recruit, train, monitor, and support family child care homes for CACFP in a particular area. Through the sponsors, CACFP provides reimbursement for food and meal preparation costs, ongoing training in the nutritional needs of children and food safety, and onsite technical assistance in meeting the program's strong nutritional requirements and child development. Sponsors are essential to make sure there is enough child care, and that the child care meets certain quality standards, and to help providers process paperwork.

Sponsoring organizations provide a bridge between the small family child care homes to the resources provided by a very complicated government program. This has been an important public private partnership. Sponsors are able to visit the family child care homes and bring onsite training in nutrition, food safety and the technical details of program record keeping.

The Center for Community Change's guidebook, Linking Human Services and Economic Development, notes that "on a practical level, sponsorship of the Child and Adult Care Food Program is one of the most important services a support program could offer."

There is a very thorough system of monitoring and oversight in place in the administration of CACFP. In addition to being audited by the State agency, sponsors must also have a CPA audit. In turn, the family child care homes participating in the food program are monitored closely by the sponsoring organizations.

For more information contact Geri Henchy at ghenchy@frac.org.

(1) Some organizations also sponsor child care centers.