The Childcare & Parent Program in GA just had a major shift effective August 1, 2016 that I have not heard anyone speak about. The program was designed to help low income families afford safe, QUALITY child care. It was based on income (ex-family of 2 had max income of $22,400, 10 had max of $68,480), and allowed the family to select their provider & would reimburse the provider a certain amount. It was typically the method used for those who were income based payers. The participants had to:-be employed at least 24 hours per week-attend vocational training for an average 24 hours per week-a combination of the 2 above-be a minor with a child The policies and procedures in the program have quietly changed. No longer is it only income based,but only those who are in very specific groups:-lottery funded Pre-K-grandparents raising grandchildren-children in DFCS custody-disabled children or children with special needs-teenagers in high school with children-victims of natural disasters What does this mean? Imagine what this means for childcare? 83% of GA childcare facilities get support from CAPS. What happens to those parents? What sacrifices in standard of care will their children experience? How can your daycare potentially suffer? For families like mine, where one parent cannot afford to work because of the price of childcare combined with lack of post-secondary education, it means being stuck in a cycle of poverty until all of my children are school-aged. For single parent households, it means a possible loss of employment due to lack of affordable childcare. For many low-income families, it means sacrificing QUALITY in the form of safety and health regulations that are mandated by state licensing for "cheap" childcare found on websites like Craigslist, where providers are not licensed and are accountable to no one. Quality Care for Children analyzed local Craigslist ads for childcare. Of the 370 ads that they analyzed, they could only confirm that 19% of the providers were licensed by the state, although most of them claimed to be. This raises health, safety, and educational concerns for these parents that have to chose affordable over quality because they will no longer qualify for assistance.