I respectfully submit this public comment as President of U-LAUNCH: Childhood Development Homes, a Virginia Licensed Home-Based Child Care System, regarding the proposed revisions to the Child Care Subsidy Program Guidance Manual.
My primary recommendation is that the Guidance Manual fully recognize and operationalize the regulatory structure established under 8VAC20-810, Minimum Standards for Licensed Family Day Systems, now referred to as Licensed Home-Based Child Care Systems following Virginia’s 2026 terminology changes.
The issue is larger than terminology.
The current Guidance Manual recognizes homes approved through a Licensed Home-Based Child Care System as Level 2 providers, but much of the subsidy administrative structure continues to operate as though the approved home functions in the same manner as an independently licensed home.
Virginia’s regulations establish otherwise.
Under 8VAC20-810, the licensed system and the approved home have different responsibilities.
The regulations define the provider as the individual who contracts with the licensed system to provide care in the provider’s home. The system, in turn, approves homes as members, refers children to approved homes, and may perform centralized functions including training, technical assistance, consultation, inspection, supervision, monitoring, evaluation, and referral to health and social services.
The license is issued to the system sponsor or licensee, while the approved home serves as the physical location in which care is provided.
Accordingly, the Child Care Subsidy Program should recognize two connected levels:
Licensed Home-Based Child Care System — the licensed entity responsible for system administration, approval, referral, monitoring, technical assistance, family relationships, financial administration, and other required functions.
System-Approved Home-Based Child Care Provider — the approved home and operator where the child is physically placed and receives care.
These two regulated actors should not be treated as interchangeable.
One of the most significant differences between an independently licensed provider and a system-approved provider is the manner in which children enter care.
Under 8VAC20-810-50, children are referred only to homes approved by the licensed system. The regulations require system involvement before placement, including interviews and family participation in the selection of the proposed member home.
When payment will be made by a local department of social services, the system is required to seek approval from the local department before referring the child for care.
Most importantly, once the child is accepted and referred to a member home, the regulations require a written child care agreement between the system and the parent or guardian. The agreement addresses the child’s placement, financial arrangements, alternative care, and the system’s responsibilities if the member home becomes unavailable.
Therefore, the approved home is the location where care is delivered, while the licensed system maintains an ongoing contractual, referral, administrative, monitoring, and recordkeeping relationship with the family and child.
The CCSP Guidance Manual should expressly recognize this structure.
Under 8VAC20-810-60, the licensed system maintains an individual record for each child accepted by the system and referred to a member home. The record includes the child’s placement history, including the different member homes in which that child has received care.
This demonstrates that Virginia’s regulatory structure already contemplates a child moving from one approved member home to another while remaining within the same licensed system.
The Child Care Subsidy Program should therefore distinguish between:
a change of physical placement within the same Licensed Home-Based Child Care System, and
a change from one unrelated subsidy provider to another.
If a child must move because a provider becomes ill, closes, withdraws, reaches capacity, is suspended, or is otherwise unavailable, the licensed system should be able to work with the family and LDSS to identify another approved member home.
Where the replacement home is already an approved CCSP vendor and all eligibility requirements remain satisfied, VDOE should establish an expedited process for updating the child’s POSO, PASS placement, and related records without unnecessary interruption of care.
This would support continuity for children and families while respecting parental choice.
Rather than referencing system-approved providers in isolated portions of the Manual, VDOE should establish a dedicated subsection titled substantially:
Licensed Home-Based Child Care Systems and System-Approved Home-Based Child Care Providers
That section should explain the complete subsidy lifecycle:
System Approval → Family Selection → System Acceptance → Approved Home Placement → Subsidy Authorization → Vendor Approval → PASS/KinderConnect → Attendance → Payment → Monitoring → Corrective Action → Change of Placement → Transfer, Withdrawal, or Closure
The Manual should clearly identify the respective roles of:
This would eliminate considerable administrative ambiguity.
The proposed Guidance Manual identifies PASS as the electronic attendance system of record and connects PASS attendance to provider payment.
However, the Manual does not adequately define the role of a Licensed Home-Based Child Care System in PASS or KinderConnect.
The KinderConnect platform currently appears capable of recognizing a system-level administrative relationship by allowing authorized system users to select affiliated providers and review provider-specific payment information.
The Guidance Manual should define this relationship.
An authorized system administrator should have role-based access to information reasonably necessary to perform system responsibilities, including, where appropriate:
This is not a request for unrestricted access to family eligibility information.
Access should be limited to information necessary for system administration and subject to confidentiality, privacy, role-based access, and recordkeeping requirements.
PASS and VaCMS should also be capable of identifying both the licensed system through which the child is being served and the approved home in which the child is physically placed.
That two-level structure would more accurately reflect 8VAC20-810.
The system regulations establish a formal financial relationship between the licensed system and its member homes.
8VAC20-810 requires systems to maintain financial records, establish policies governing collection and disbursement of funds, maintain fee schedules, and establish written payment arrangements with member homes. Member-home agreements must also address the financial relationship between the system and provider.
The CCSP Guidance Manual should therefore explain how subsidy payment administration interacts with these regulatory requirements.
At minimum, the Manual should recognize that a licensed system may have legitimate responsibilities involving:
Where legally permissible, subsidy procedures should support system-level administrative and financial functions rather than inadvertently preventing the licensed system from complying with duties imposed by 8VAC20-810.
Authorized system officials should also be permitted to review payment activity associated with affiliated homes when reasonably necessary for financial reconciliation and administration.
A Licensed Home-Based Child Care System cannot adequately monitor an approved home if material actions affecting that home are communicated only to the individual operator.
The Guidance Manual should require notice to the authorized system representative when an affiliated home experiences a material change such as:
The information flow should also work in the opposite direction.
The licensed system should have a standardized process for notifying VDOE when a member home closes, withdraws, changes address, changes ownership, has approval suspended or terminated, transfers to another system, or otherwise experiences a material status change.
VDOE should also recognize the licensed system as a corrective-action and technical-assistance resource.
The system standards already require monitoring, consultation, training, and technical assistance to member homes.
For correctable matters that do not involve immediate health or safety danger, fraud, or intentional program violations, VDOE should be able to notify the licensed system and allow it to assist the provider with correction.
Examples may include attendance errors, incomplete documents, PASS configuration issues, recordkeeping deficiencies, or other administrative problems.
The objective should be timely compliance rather than unnecessary provider loss.
The licensing standards require the system to address complaints concerning its member homes.
The CCSP Guidance Manual should therefore establish coordination between VDOE and the licensed system when a complaint involves a system-approved provider.
The system should be notified when appropriate so that it can fulfill its own regulatory responsibilities. Allegations involving abuse or neglect should, of course, continue to follow all mandatory CPS reporting requirements.
The Manual should also clearly distinguish:
Individual home responsibility — conduct attributable to a particular approved home or operator;
System responsibility — conduct attributable to the licensed system, its policies, administration, or authorized staff; and
State or local administrative responsibility — issues resulting from PASS, VaCMS, Provider Services, LDSS, system outages, processing errors, or other government administration.
A violation involving one member home should not automatically affect unrelated homes within the same system unless a system-level violation has been established.
Adverse actions should clearly identify the responsible party, requirement involved, corrective action, effective date, and whether the action affects the individual home, the licensed system, or both.
The Guidance Manual should establish procedures for circumstances such as:
When the family, approved home, and licensed system have timely completed their required actions, they should not bear avoidable consequences solely because a state-designated administrative system or process failed.
To the extent permitted by law, VDOE should provide mechanisms for:
The Manual should clearly explain what happens when an approved home:
Guidance should address the effect on the Vendor ID, Vendor Agreement, PASS/KinderConnect, existing POSOs, enrolled children, accrued payments, attendance records, effective dates, and family continuity.
The Manual should also address the less common but important circumstance in which the licensed system itself closes, changes sponsorship, or loses operating authority.
A system-level contingency procedure should protect families, appropriately transition provider records, address outstanding payments, terminate or transfer system access, and establish clear responsibility for records.
The Guidance Manual should replace outdated references to “Family Day System” and “Family Day Home” with Virginia’s current terminology:
Licensed Home-Based Child Care System
and
Home-Based Child Care / Approved Home-Based Child Care Provider
Legacy terminology may be retained parenthetically where necessary to cross-reference existing regulations.
The Manual should also avoid identifying a particular private organization as though it exclusively represents the licensed system category.
I recommend adding definitions substantially similar to the following:
Licensed Home-Based Child Care System — A licensed entity authorized to approve member homes, refer children, and perform centralized administrative, supervisory, monitoring, technical-assistance, training, and related functions.
System-Approved Home-Based Child Care Provider — An approved home within a Licensed Home-Based Child Care System in which children referred through the system receive care.
System Affiliation — The formal regulatory and contractual relationship between a licensed system and an approved member home.
System Placement — The approved member home in which a child accepted and referred through a licensed system currently receives care.
Change of System Placement — Movement of a child from one approved member home to another within the same Licensed Home-Based Child Care System.
Virginia’s Licensed Home-Based Child Care System model already exists in law and regulation.
The licensed system is not merely an outside consultant to independently operating providers.
Under Virginia’s regulatory structure, the system approves member homes, contracts with those homes, maintains financial arrangements, accepts and refers children, enters agreements with parents, maintains child records and placement histories, monitors providers, provides technical assistance, investigates complaints, and addresses continuity when individual placements become unavailable. The original draft correctly centered these functions as the basis for requesting alignment between 8VAC20-810 and CCSP.
The Child Care Subsidy Program Guidance Manual should therefore not administer a system-approved home as though the licensed system surrounding that provider does not exist.
I respectfully request that VDOE establish a dedicated policy framework addressing the Licensed Home-Based Child Care System, its approved homes, the families and children referred through the system, PASS/KinderConnect administration, payment and attendance visibility, provider-status notification, placement changes, continuity of care, corrective action, complaints, and the respective responsibilities of the system, approved home, family, VDOE, VDSS, and LDSS.
Doing so would bring the Guidance Manual into closer alignment with 8VAC20-810, reduce administrative ambiguity, strengthen accountability, preserve continuity for subsidy families, and allow Virginia’s Licensed Home-Based Child Care Systems to perform the functions for which they are already licensed.
Respectfully submitted,
Herbert Potts
President
U-LAUNCH: Childhood Development Homes
Virginia Licensed Home-Based Child Care System