From the brief: "The purpose of this brief is to highlight some of the strategies states are pursuing to address equity in allocating their ARPA child care funds. It also provides a framework to support decision making around how to use recovery funds that focuses on the needs and preferences of families—particularly families that face barriers to accessing high-quality ECE.

Strategies include:

• Conducting town halls with families, providers, and other early childhood stakeholders to inform state priorities for allocating the funding.
• Partnering with intermediary organizations to conduct outreach and technical assistance around the stabilization grants with ECE providers.
• Using the Social Vulnerability Index (SVI) to distribute grants to ECE providers that serve the communities most in need within their state.

The intent for sharing these strategies is to document some different ways in which states are working to embed equity in their decision-making process. As part of this step, many states are using this funding opportunity to collect additional data to better understand the inequities that young children, families, and providers in the ECE system face in their state. Equipped with these data, states can begin to better define their goals for equitable ECE access and how they can track their progress toward meeting these goals."