The Department of Children, Youth, and Families and Burke Consulting this week outlined a new Early Care and Education Facilities Exploration Project aimed at identifying what supports—beyond grant dollars—are needed to open, expand or convert spaces for child care across Washington.

The project will inventory prior investments and policy work, complete a literature review of possible solutions and convene a facilities work group that will meet through spring 2026. Allegra Calder, project manager at Burke Consulting, said the consultants are “working towards a final implementation plan for May of 2026” and that the team is still in an early research phase and seeking broad input from providers and technical experts.

Why it matters: state leaders and the early learning community have identified facilities as a recurring barrier to expanding access to affordable child care. The project will aim to surface practical, local solutions—such as regulatory alignment, technical assistance, financing models and developer incentives—so that public dollars for facilities produce usable classrooms, not unfunded obligations or projects stalled by permitting.

Project scope and timeline
- The team will finish a literature review focused on proven and proposed facility solutions and produce recommendations grouped in six areas: advocacy to treat child care as public infrastructure; regulatory alignment/streamlining; capacity building and technical assistance for providers and professionals; public financing options; incentives for developers; and innovative ownership/financing models, Barb Rosen, subject matter expert, said.
- Burke and DCYF will convene a facilities work group that meets about five times between May 2025 and April 2026 to stress‑test ideas and review interim products.
- The consultants noted some data gaps—Tribal facility need was specifically called out—and said they will seek interviews, group discussions and regional input. An interest survey link was placed in the meeting chat for providers to volunteer to be interviewed or to join discussions.

Funding context
- The presentation summarized major milestones in Washington’s facilities work, including the creation of the Early Learning Facilities Fund in 2017 and subsequent appropriations that rose from $15 million initially to about $97 million in recent years, according to presentation slides.

What providers said in discussion
Providers emphasized that building facilities is insufficient without a workforce to staff new classrooms. Multiple participants warned that newly licensed capacity can remain unused if there are not enough teachers—and that wage and staffing policies should be developed in tandem with facility expansion. Providers also raised practical barriers: local permitting, fire marshal and building code processes vary by jurisdiction and can stall projects. DCYF staff acknowledged those authorities sit outside the agency and said one goal of the work group is to improve cross‑agency relationships and to create local directories or points of contact to speed answers.

How to engage
The team asked providers with facilities experience to complete the interest survey shared in the chat; they may follow up with group interviews by region or individual interviews. The consultants and DCYF said they will return to ELAC and the Provider Supports Subcommittee with draft recommendations and want local input on what types of technical assistance and financing will be most useful.

Ending
DCYF and Burke Consulting described the facilities effort as a continuation of the state’s Early Care and Education Access and Living Wage work and said the recommendations will be shaped by both statewide research and the operational challenges providers report during the work group and interviews.