Who is Eligible for Military Child Care?

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Who is Eligible for Military Child Care?

Overview

There are three factors that determine who may receive military child care services and when they may access care: basic eligibility, priority, and participant age. These factors are described in detail below.

A child must be a dependent of an eligible sponsor in order to enroll in any military child care program. The sponsor is a person with DoD-affiliation (e.g., Active Duty military, DoD Civilian). The sponsor’s DoD-affiliated status makes his/her dependent children eligible for military child care services.

Basic Eligibility: Eligible Sponsors and Qualifying Children

ELIGIBLE SPONSORS

Eligible sponsors include:

  • Child Development Program Staff
  • Active Duty Combat-Related Wounded Warrior
    • To qualify, the sponsor must be in active duty status and require hospitalization, extensive rehabilitation, or significant care from a spouse or care provider and require full-time child care.
  • Active Duty Military
    • Guard and Reserve on Active Duty
  • DoD Civilian
  • Coast Guard Civilian
  • Gold Star Spouse (Combat-Related)
    • For the purposes of military child care eligibility, a Gold Star Spouse is the surviving spouse of a service member killed in a combat-related incident.
  • DoD Contractor
  • Other Federal Employee (e.g., US Secret Service)
  • Deactivated Guard/Reserve Personnel or Inactive Guard/Reserve in a Training Status
  • Military Retiree
  • Other Sponsor Type
    • Some installations have approved policy exceptions that make specific groups eligible for military child care who would otherwise be ineligible.

QUALIFYING CHILDREN

An eligible sponsor may only enroll a qualifying dependent in military child care. A qualifying child is defined as someone between birth and the age of 12 who has one of the following relationships with the eligible sponsor:

  • A dependent or secondary dependent child who lives with the sponsor
  • Any other child for whom the sponsor has legal guardianship and resides with the sponsor
  • A foster child who lives with the sponsor
  • A child who is living with a person acting “in loco parentis” on behalf of the child’s eligible sponsor, who must leave the area temporarily to fulfill a military obligation. An “in loco parentis” relationship is one in which a person takes on the role of a lawful parent by assuming the obligations and discharging the duties of a parent without formally becoming an adoptive parent or legal guardian. In these cases, the child must reside with and be supported by this person while their eligible sponsor is absent. A special power of attorney to act “in loco parentis” is required to be on file.

ELIGIBILITY FOR 24/7 CENTER CARE

24/7 Centers are designed to meet the needs of military watch standers and shift workers, and military personnel who are called for duty during non-traditional work hours (e.g., nights, weekends, Federal holidays, etc.). 24/7 Centers must first serve sponsors for whom 24/7 care was specifically designed, including:

  • Shift workers: Shift workers are sponsors or spouses whose regular work schedule occurs outside of standard business hours such as weekends, evenings, or overnight shifts. Examples of shift work schedules include the following: a sponsor who works 23:00–07:00 Monday through Friday (overnight shift), a sponsor who works a rotating shift with two day shifts (07:00–15:30) and two afternoon/evening shifts (15:00–23:00) followed by three days off.
  • Watch standers: Watch standers are those whose work schedules occasionally require child care outside of standard CYP operating hours. An example of a watch stander is a sponsor who is required to “stand duty” on an intermittent basis (e.g., twice a week for three months).

As such, 24/7 Centers must offer care to the first eligible family in sequence order whose work schedule meets the program’s available vacancy.

See Placement Activities for detailed instructions on the offer process for 24/7 care offered by 24/7 Centers.

Priority

The purpose of military child care is to support the mission of the DoD by serving DoD-affiliated families so that they may fulfill their military or DoD-related duties. Per DoDI 6060.02, military child care programs must serve the highest priority DoD families first to ensure the most mission-critical families receive access to military child care. DoD has assigned priorities to each military family type (defined below) to ensure that programs meet this requirement.

Military family type is the eligibility categorization for military child care that is comprised of the following elements:

  1. Sponsor type (e.g., Active Duty Military, DoD Civilian, etc.), and
  2. Spouse status (i.e., full-time or part-time working spouse, full-time or part-time student spouse, spouse seeking employment, non-working spouse), if applicable.

A spouse’s status will determine a family’s priority; however, spouses working full-time are given a higher priority over those working part-time. You must confirm full-time or part-time working status before enrolling a child in care.

  • To be considered full-time working, the spouse must work at least 30 hours per week or 100 hours per month OR work less than 30 hours per week or 100 hours per month and be enrolled in a post-secondary educational institution.
  • A spouse who works less than 30 hours per week or 100 hours per month and is not enrolled in a post-secondary institution and considered part-time working.

Families select their sponsor type and spouse status when they create an MCC household profile and update it, as needed, when there are changes to their sponsor type, marital status, or spouse status. MCC uses this information to create a military family type for the household that automatically ties to the appropriate DoD-assigned priority.

For a complete list of all priorities, refer to the see the Military Family Type handout.

WAITLIST SEQUENCE

To help programs meet the DoD requirement to serve the most mission-critical families first, MCC generates an automated waitlist sequence for each request for care submitted. MCC uses the following aspects of a request to calculate waitlist sequence:

  • DoD Priority Assigned to the Family’s Military Family Type
  • RFC Date: The date the family placed their child on a program’s waitlist (i.e., the date a family submitted a request for care).

With few exceptions, program users must make offers for care in order of waitlist sequence. During the offer process, once you describe your program’s available space in MCC, the system generates a Make Offer/Request Interview screen that displays all requests that qualify for the space in order by waitlist sequence.

Since MCC uses military family type in its sequence calculation, a change in military family type could affect a request’s waitlist sequence.

NOTE: Since military family type is tied to DoD-determined priority for care, program users must verify a family’s sponsor type and spouse status before they may enroll a child in a military child care program to ensure the family has been prioritized correctly and offered care in the correct waitlist sequence. If the program user finds that the family’s sponsor type and/or spouse status was incorrect, and it affects the request’s waitlist sequence once the program corrects it in MCC (i.e., the family’s request is no longer first in sequence), the program user must withdraw the offer and offer care to the next request in sequence on the waitlist. See Manage Enrollment for instructions on what actions to take in MCC if the family’s military family type is incorrect.

SPACE AVAILABLE

Although eligible for military child care, families with DoD contractors, Other Federal Employees, or Military Retirees (including retired Combat-Related Wounded Warriors) as sponsor types, as well as any military family type with a non-working spouse may only access military child care on a space available basis, after all families with higher priority on the waitlist have been served.

WAITLIST EXCEPTIONS

MCC accommodates waitlist exceptions including (a) priority exceptions that modify waitlist sequencing; (b) family type exceptions that grant eligibility to otherwise ineligible families; and (c) locally managed exceptions that allow installations to authorize out of sequence offers based on local priorities.

To add a waitlist exception to MCC, a memorandum of understanding (MOU) or memorandum of agreement (MOA) must be submitted by the Service Representative. At a minimum, the MOU/MOA must contain the following:

  • Installation(s) where the waitlist exception exists
  • Description of family type and/or affiliation for which the exception exists
  • Priority to which the family should be assigned, including spouse status (e.g., working spouse, spouse seeking employment, student spouse, spouse not working), if applicable to exception
  • Relevant program type(s) (e.g., CDC, FCC, SAC)
  • Expiration of MOA/MOU

Service Representatives should contact the Program Support Desk to request the creation of a waitlist exception in MCC and provide Support Desk staff with a copy of the MOU or MOA.

SUPPLANTING POLICY

Priorities are used for more than just placement from the waitlist; they also inform which families can be supplanted. To improve military members’ access to child care, the Office of the Secretary of Defense allows programs to supplant lower priority patrons when necessary. Under the policy, lower priority families enrolled at a facility-based program may receive written notification that their child will be disenrolled in 45 days to accommodate a higher priority family. If supplanted, families can reapply for care and ask a program staff person to update their RFC date to reflect the date the child started care at the program from which they were supplanted. Note: Requests for updating RFC dates must occur within 30 days of the child's last day in care after being supplanted and only pertain to programs and providers in the geographic area where the family was supplanted.

What family types can and cannot be supplanted?

Family types that cannot be supplanted include:

  • Child Development Program Direct Care Staff
  • Active Duty Combat-Related Wounded Warriors
  • Single/Dual Active Duty Military
  • Single/Dual Guard and Reserve on Active Duty
  • Active Duty Military with Full-Time Working Spouse
  • Guard and Reserve on Active Duty with Full-Time Working Spouse

Family types that may be supplanted include:

  • Active Duty Military with a part-time working spouse, a spouse seeking employment, a student spouse, or a non-working spouse
  • Guard and Reserve on Active Duty with a part-time working spouse, a spouse seeking employment, a student spouse, or a non-working spouse
  • DoD/Coast Guard Civilians
  • DoD Contractors
  • Other eligible patrons (Deactivated Guard/Reserve Personnel, Inactive Guard/Reserve in a Training Status, Other Federal Employees, and Military Retirees)

For more details about supplanting, review the Military Family Types and DoD Priority – Supplanting Matrix handout.

Participant Age

The table below presents the minimum and maximum ages for qualifying children to participate in military child care program by Branch of Service. Additionally, each program type provides services to a specific age range of children.

A table presenting minimum and maximum participant ages by Branch of Service and Program Type

*Age eligibility for school age children can be extended to seventh and/or eighth grade at a specific installation with approval from the Service Branch HQ.

Last revised: 19 Dec 2023