Renovation of a day care center in Rensselaer, New York. Completed plans call for the renovation of a day care center.

Child care programs play an integral role in the social, emotional and physical development of children. Developmentally appropriate, high quality learning environments lead to better outcomes, such as the promotion of healthy behaviors, socialemotional skills, and independence.Considering the high costs associated with providing child care and the razor thin profit margins, home-based child care businesses are often not able to make the renovations and repairs that would allow them to provide a higher quality of care. The New York State Office of Children & Family Services (OCFS) announces a Solicitation of Interest (SOI) for qualified entities that are a New York State based not-forprofit (community-based encouraged) with established collaboration in the state's child care sector and at least three years' experience working with home-based child care business owners. OCFS is seeking an entity that will develop an infrastructure repair and renovation grant program and will provide comprehensive technical assistance to homebased child care businesses. Applicants must commit to staffing a skilled project team and having an application software system for grant management, payments, data storage, and reporting. Please see the Eligibility Criteria section for additional information. This advertisement is public notice that OCFS is seeking to contract with one organization to be the administrator and comprehensive technical assistance partner with OCFS for the Repair and Renovation: Home-Based Child Care project. Please see the Scope of Work section for additional information. The purpose of this solicitation is to invite any eligible and interested entities that believe they can satisfy this program's needs to inform OCFS by a Letter of Interest (LOI). To be considered responsive, your organization's LOI should be received no later than the deadline specified on the first page of this announcement. Please see the How to Respond section for additional information and submission requirements. Scope of Work DELIVERABLES: Interested organizations must be able to perform the following services: o Develop a repair and renovation infrastructure grant program aimed at home-based child care businesses. o Develop and provide a technical assistance program to home-based child care businesses from design to completion of minor repair and renovation projects that increase quality of care and expand capacity of their services. o Screen home-based, NYS licensed or registered, child care businesses for eligibility against the grant program requirements and prioritize the applications based upon readiness and applicability to meet programmatic goals. o Create a system to monitor and review progress of projects for identified awarded home-based child care businesses. o Establish partnerships between home-based child care businesses, community development financial institutions, building developers, planners, and contractors to remove barriers and support home-based child care businesses in completing quality renovation projects in a timely manner. o Provide the position(s) described under STAFFING REQUIREMENTS The Repair and Renovation Project: Home-Based Child Care is a $10M infrastructure project, specific to home-based child care businesses in New York State. The project includes up to an additional $4M for administrative and technical assistance costs and fees. This project will give home-based child care businesses the opportunity to complete minor repairs and renovations to their child care environments. The goal is that these renovations and repairs will further increase the quality of the care environment and allow for increased enrollment or capacity of their programs. The comprehensive technical assistance to home-based child care business owners will promote overall quality of the care they provide to children and families. This project will allow existing New York State licensed/registered home-based child care businesses to apply for a grant, with a maximum award value, ranging from $25,000- $75,000 per award. Through this announcement, OCFS is exploring the availability of vendors who have the expertise to provide the services required by OCFS. Community-based not-for-profit organizations are strongly encouraged to apply. The results of this announcement are intended to determine if this opportunity will be competitively bid. If too few responses are received, OCFS may pursue other procurement options for this project. Funding for this project is contingent upon the availability of funds in the state and/or federal budgets and the number of interested and eligible parties that respond to this solicitation.