Head Start University Partnerships: Building the Evidence Base for ECE Workforce Well-Being | HHS 2021 ACF OPRE YR 1967

Opportunity Information: Apply for HHS 2021 ACF OPRE YR 1967

The Head Start University Partnerships: Building the Evidence Base for ECE Workforce Well-Being opportunity is a federal research and evaluation grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families (ACF), through OPRE. It is designed to strengthen what the field knows about the well-being of the Head Start (HS) and Early Head Start (EHS) workforce, with a specific emphasis on educational staff such as teachers and assistant teachers. The core purpose is twofold: first, to deepen the evidence base on what factors are associated with workforce well-being in HS/EHS settings, and second, to carry out rigorous evaluations of practical strategies that are expected to improve that well-being. ACF is looking for approaches that can realistically be implemented in Head Start contexts over time, meaning they should be feasible for programs to use, sustainable beyond the life of the grant, and replicable in other HS/EHS sites.

Applicants are encouraged to focus on one or more well-being constructs that are meaningful in early care and education settings. Examples named in the opportunity include secondary trauma, autonomy, decision-making, self-efficacy, physical and mental health, job-related stress, and work satisfaction. Importantly, the construct(s) selected should not be isolated measures of how staff feel; they must be grounded in existing research that links them to outcomes that matter in Head Start and early childhood systems. Those outcomes can include workforce retention (reducing turnover), continuity of care for children and families, the quality of teacher-child interactions, or other indicators connected to program quality and child and family outcomes. In other words, the grants are aimed at building evidence that connects staff well-being to the broader goals of effective, stable, high-quality early childhood services.

A key expectation is that projects use an equity lens. While the notice does not prescribe a single definition, it signals that ACF is interested in work that recognizes and examines how well-being is shaped by inequities and differing conditions across people and settings, and how interventions may work differently across groups or contexts. The grant also explicitly calls for research that looks beyond individuals alone by exploring potential mediators and moderators of workforce well-being, including community conditions, environmental stressors, and organizational factors. This pushes projects to examine how workplace policies, management practices, staffing structures, local resources, and broader community contexts may influence staff stress, health, and satisfaction, and how these pathways relate to outcomes like retention and classroom quality.

This funding uses a cooperative agreement model, which generally means ACF expects an active partnership role in the work rather than a hands-off grant. The opportunity also requires all funded projects to participate in a consortium of grantees. Consortium participation includes annual meetings and regular communication throughout the project period to share lessons learned, coordinate where appropriate, and identify opportunities for joint or comparative analyses. A major goal of the consortium is to align the field by collaborating on measurement, conceptual framework development, and operational definitions of workforce well-being. By standardizing or harmonizing how projects define and measure key concepts, ACF aims to ensure that results across multiple awards can be interpreted together and used to build a clearer, more cumulative understanding of what improves HS/EHS workforce well-being and under what conditions.

Structurally, projects are planned for up to five years, with funding under consideration in the range of $250,000 to $500,000 per budget year, subject to availability and federal interest. The first year is set aside for essential groundwork: adapting or refining the workforce well-being approach(es) to be tested, piloting those approaches in HS/EHS settings, and developing and refining a shared conceptual framework and measurement plan in collaboration with the consortium. After that initial development and piloting period, the expectation is that each grantee will carry out rigorous evaluation of the refined approach in real HS/EHS environments. The emphasis on adaptation, refinement, and piloting in year one signals that ACF is not only looking for ideas, but for interventions that can be made implementation-ready and then tested in ways that produce credible evidence.

Eligibility is listed as unrestricted in a broad sense (open to many entity types), but the practical requirements make it clear that this is meant for organizations that can support high-level research teams and authentic program partnerships. Applicant organizations are expected to apply on behalf of researchers with a doctorate or equivalent degree, for whom research is a primary professional responsibility, and who have a demonstrated publication record as first or second author in peer-reviewed journals. In addition, applicants must show an established partnership with one or more Head Start programs, documented through signed letters of support from the partnering program(s) confirming the research partnership. This requirement signals that ACF wants projects that are embedded in real program settings from the start, with program buy-in and shared commitment to implementation and evaluation.

Administratively, the opportunity was posted under funding opportunity number HHS 2021 ACF OPRE YR 1967, CFDA 93.600, as a discretionary award using cooperative agreements. The ceiling listed is $500,000, and the anticipated number of awards is 8. The original application due date was July 6, 2021 (11:59 p.m. ET for electronic submission). The notice also points applicants to OPRE for additional context and indicates that if ACF publishes the full funding opportunity announcement, it may include further details such as final priority constructs and more specific expectations for grantees.

• The Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families - OPRE in the income security and social services sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Head Start University Partnerships: Building the Evidence Base for ECE Workforce Well-Being" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 93.600.
• This funding opportunity was created on May 05, 2021.
• Applicants must submit their applications by Jul 06, 2021 Electronically submitted applications must be submitted no later than 1159 p.m., ET, on the listed application due date.. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $500,000.00 in funding.
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 8 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: Unrestricted (i.e., open to any type of entity above), subject to any clarification in text field entitled Additional Information on Eligibility.

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