Live in King County
Use this map to determine if you live within King County limits.
Best Starts for Kids is a King County voter-approved initiative to support every baby born or child raised in King County to reach adulthood happy, healthy, safe, and thriving. Starting in 2022, these investments include $20 million per year for a new child care subsidy program!
Due to high demand, we are currently placing new applicants on a waitlist. We appreciate your understanding and encourage you to join the waitlist by completing the five-minute eligibility form. Our team is working diligently to accommodate as many families as possible. We will notify waitlisted applicants when funding may be available. Join our waitlist today!
Your family may be eligible for the Best Starts for Kids Child Care Subsidy if you:
Use this map to determine if you live within King County limits.
Pre-tax monthly household income must fall below the limit for your family size. See household Income Table.
If you meet the eligibility for WCCC, you will be asked to apply for that first.
Have a child or children age 12 or under.
Child care providers must be licensed and in good standing with the State of Washington. Check the licensing status of your child care provider or find a provider at: https://www.findchildcarewa.org/
2
$5,158
3
$6,372
4
$7,585
5
$8,799
6
$10,012
7
$10,240
8
$10,468
9
$10,695
10
$10,923
For information about larger household sizes, please text (206) 208-6865
or email support@bskchildcare.org
Complete the 5-minute eligibility form to find out if you may be eligible for the subsidy. Please note: this step does not guarantee you child care funding and will place you on our waitlist due to high demand.
After submitting the eligibility form, you will be placed on our waitlist if you appear eligible for the subsidy. We will contact you when funding may be available.
When funding may be available for your family, we will contact you and invite you to complete the full application where you verify your identity, income, and address.
Complete a full application, verify identity, income, and address documentation, and select a child care provider to register them to receive payments.
For the fastest response, send us a text, and we’ll get back to you as soon as possible! (Messaging & data rates may apply)
Email the team with your questions or a brief description of your issue, and we’ll get back to you as quickly as possible!
Call our team if you have questions, need to know where you can get application assistance or need to report a problem with the application form.
Scholar Fund is collecting the information we need to assess your eligibility for both the Best Starts for Kids Child Care Subsidy and the State’s Working Connections Child Care (WCCC) program.
If you are eligible for WCCC, you cannot receive the Best Starts Subsidy. We understand that some of this information is sensitive and where possible, have made these questions optional. We identify questions where your information will never be shared with King County or other government agencies connected to your name.
Best Starts is committed to expanding access for families who have experienced disproportionate barriers in accessing child care. Some of the questions we ask help us better understand who we are serving with the child care subsidy.For more information about our privacy policy, see: Privacy Policy (scholarfundwa.org)
There is no activity requirement for Best Starts for Kids Child Care Subsidy. We ask about your activities to assess your family’s eligibility for Working Connections. If your family is eligible for Working Connections, you must use that subsidy.
No. There is no citizenship or legal residency requirement to apply.
The following families, who meet all other eligibility requirements, are encouraged to apply:
Yes. Eligible applicants without permanent housing are encouraged to apply. We will offer other ways to verify that your family lives in King County.
Yes. Because those who receive SSI or SSDI are not eligible for Washington State Working Connections Child Care Subsidy (WCCC), you are eligible for the Best Starts Child Care Subsidy, provided your household meets all other eligibility requirements.
Being on the waitlist means that you have submitted your eligibility form for the Best Starts for Kids Child Care Subsidy program, but due to high demand and limited availability, we cannot immediately offer you funding. We will notify you when funding may be available.
The wait time will vary. We will notify you when funding may be available for your family.
Yes, if you need to update or correct an error on your eligibility form, please reach out to our Family Access and Support team by call or text at (206) 208-6865 or an email at support@bskchildcare.org
Your eligibility status may change if there are updates to your family's circumstances or if the program's eligibility criteria change. We recommend reaching out to the Family Access and Support team by call or text at (206) 208-6865 or an email at support@bskchildcare.org if there are significant changes to your family's situation.
We will notify you via email and text message when funding may be available for your child. At that time, you will be invited to submit the full application, requiring verification of your residency and income. Please ensure that your contact information is up-to-date and check your notifications regularly for updates from our team.
Yes, we encourage you to explore other child care assistance programs that may be available to your family. Being on the waitlist for our program does not affect your eligibility for other programs.
While we cannot guarantee a specific timeline for getting off the waitlist, you can ensure that your eligibility form and contact information are complete, accurate, and up-to-date. This will help our team contact you as efficiently as possible when funding may be available.
For the purposes of this program, your “household” includes the following people:
For the purposes of this program, the following people are not counted in your household size:
Each parent/guardian should submit a separate application for their family.
Your gross monthly income includes all income, before any deductions or expenses, earned by yourself and up to one other adult who lives with you and fits one of the following descriptions- your spouse, your domestic partner, or your significant other with whom you have a child. Please also include any income from disability, unemployment insurance, child support, alimony etc.
Because this is a new program, we do not yet know how many families will apply. Submitting an eligibility form will NOT guarantee you receive child care funding. There may be more families interested than we have funding to serve. We will contact you by text and email if you are selected to complete a full application by the end of September 2022.
The selection process is NOT first-come, first-served. We will be using a lottery system to make selections by the end of September. Eligible applicants not selected in the first round will remain in the selection pool, and as spots become available, will have regular opportunities for selection.
Those families selected in the first round will likely receive a subsidy that can start November 1st. We will not pay for child care used before the subsidy starts. If you use care before November 1st, you will be responsible for paying for it.
A selected family’s subsidy rate will be calculated by a number of factors, including age of each child needing care, family income and household size. The amount per child will be shared with the family after they have been selected to fully enroll in the program.
Scholar Fund will pay the determined amount directly to the child care provider on a monthly basis. Any part of the bill not covered by the Best Starts Subsidy will be the responsibility of the family.
Eligible applicants who are not invited to complete an application for the subsidy will automatically remain in our selection pool. We anticipate spots opening up over time so it will be possible to be selected months after filling out the eligibility form. If you are not selected, we will send you a list of other resources that may be able to support you with the cost of child care.
Text or call us at 206-208-6865 and someone can help you fill out the application over the phone.
If your household submits multiple eligibility forms by mistake, Scholar Fund (Scholarship Junkies) will be able to identify that multiple applications from the same household were submitted. You will not be disqualified.
The nonprofit organization Scholar Fund is responsible for collecting the personal information you submit in the eligibility form. Such information that you provide is deemed confidential and will be protected accordingly. The information you provide is yours, and you may make corrections to such data at any time.
You can access Scholar Funds Privacy Policy here (English only).
Scholar Fund deploys appropriate physical, electronic, and managerial procedures to safeguard and secure the personal information you provide, including to help prevent unauthorized access, maintain data accuracy, and ensure the correct use of personal information. Further, Scholar Fund does not share personal information with third parties except in limited circumstances as outlined in the Scholar Fund Privacy Policy.
When appropriate, Scholar Fund only shares aggregate and anonymized information with third parties so as not to include personally identifying information. For example, Scholar Fund will submit periodic reports to the Best Starts for Kids Child Care Subsidy Program, but such reports will only include your data at an aggregate-level in de-identified format, including ZIP code of residence, service outcomes, and demographic information.
Personal information will only be retained for as long as necessary to fulfill the purposes for which it was collected, there is an ongoing legitimate purpose to retain the data (such as contractual obligations or identity verification), or to comply with legal or auditing requirements.
In order to reduce fraud and avoid duplicates, Scholar Fund has developed several mechanisms to screen and check applicants to spot discrepancies, which includes a thorough application review process, spam filters, and address verification. Scholar Fund personnel may also contact applicants via phone or text if application issues are detected.
Community partners supporting families to access child care.
INCOME ELIGIBILITY CHART
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