The Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE), through its Child Care Matters initiative and in collaboration with All In For Kansas Kids, is pleased to announce four awards to Kansas communities as part of its Child Care Zones program. This new initiative is funded by a federal Preschool Development Birth through Five (PDG B-5) Renewal Grant, awarded to Kansas in 2024 and administered by the Kansas Children’s Cabinet and Trust Fund.
The PDG B-5 renewal grant invests in targeted initiatives that support the state's early childhood ecosystem. This funding allows both community and state-level early childhood leaders to strengthen comprehensive services and programming for Kansas children, families and professionals.
“We are pleased to support KDHE’s Child Care Zones program through the PDG B-5 investment,” Melissa Rooker, Executive Director of the Kansas Children’s Cabinet and Trust Fund, said. “These are communities who are working together to address barriers, grow awareness of needs and challenges, recover from shortages and setbacks, and make sustainable system improvements.”
KDHE initiated the Child Care Zones program in early 2025 to support communities working to address local child care issues. A Child Care Zone is a self-defined geographic area (of at least two counties) that receives state-level support to address community-specific child care challenges. Applicants for Child Care Zones grants were required to demonstrate strong collaboration with community partners such as local child care professionals, employers, local government, school districts and community-based organizations.
Round One Child Care Zones awardees presented their unique, regional priorities for improving child care availability and quality through a highly competitive application and interview process. Each awardee outlined their strategies to address local child care needs, such as workforce recruitment and retention, public-private partnership formation and child care quality and access. While many of these needs are experienced statewide, Child Care Zones grantees will focus on understanding the unique elements of how each challenge presents in their community and the localized approaches necessary to address them.
“Child Care Zones, made possible with federal PDG funding, are an opportunity to support local communities and their child care needs,” Derik Flerlage, KDHE Director of Bureau of Family Health and Bureau of Disease Control and Prevention, said. “Using KDHE’s aid-to-local model, we are proud to fund creative ideas to improve child care infrastructure as identified by those who know their needs best – Kansas local communities. We are excited to see future progress and innovations come to fruition.”
Round One Awardees
A second round of support for Child Care Zones will be announced in early summer with applications due in late August 2025. Interested communities must represent at least two counties and can sign up for the All In For Kansas Kids newsletter to receive notice when the request for applications is released. To learn more about the Child Care Zones initiative please contact Jennifer Burgardt, Child Care Zones Coordinator.
About All In For Kansas Kids
All In For Kansas Kids is a statewide effort, led by cross-agency leaders, to identify needs in our early childhood ecosystem, fill gaps, and plan for our children’s brighter future. Visit their website to learn more.
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