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Child Care Assistance Program Policy Manual Issued 08/2021 Authorizing child care 9.1 The amount of child care authorized must reflect the needs of the family and minimize out of pocket child care costs to the family. Include information in case notes describing how care is authorized. Guidelines for authorizing child care Rules for authorizing child care differ depending on the family’s authorized activities: • For parents with approved Employment Plans, see Chapter 9.1.5 (Authorizing care – Employment Plans). • For parents attending school, see Chapter 9.1.2 (Authorizing Care – Students). • For employed parents, see Chapter 9.1.1 (Authorizing care – Employment). • For self-employment parents, see Chapter 9.1.1.1 (Authorizing care – Self-employment). • For parents who are job searching, see Chapter 9.1.4 (Authorizing care – Job search). • For parents who are participating in a combination of activities, see Chapter 9.1.7 (Authorizing care – Combinations of activities). Determining the number of hours to authorize Determine the schedule of care needed Do NOT pay for more than 120 hours of child care assistance per child every two weeks. The maximum number of hours authorized for each child should be the number of hours that care is needed to support parental authorized activities, excluding the hours that the child does not need child care and the hours that the provider is not available. The child may not need child care due to the child being in school or the parent having another care arrangement. If the family indicates on the application or redetermination that fewer hours of child care are needed, the worker may follow up with the family to determine if fewer hours of care should be authorized.

To determine the number of hours that care is needed for each child, the worker must examine each of these: • The family’s authorized activity schedule • The child’s school schedule • The provider’s availability. See Chapter 7.27 (Schedule verification – Employment and education) and Chapter 7.30 (Schedule information – Child’s school schedule). Custody schedules or parenting time arrangements If a child resides in multiple homes, hours can only be authorized based on the times the child is in the CCAP home. A child is considered temporarily absent from the CCAP parent’s home when the child is residing with the other parent. Care cannot be authorized and paid for a child during the times they are temporarily absent from the CCAP home, even though they are still included in the household size. This includes payment of absent days when the child is in the other parent’s custody. See Chapter 5.3 (Determining the CCAP Family) for information about how parenting time arrangements affect determination of the CCAP family. See “Communicating the