Program Overview
The Florida Child Care Food Program (CCFP) provides healthy and nutritious food to children in child care centers, day care homes, and outside-school-hour centers, homeless shelters and daycare centers. The program works by providing meals at subsidized prices to these centers to help them improve the quality of food.
- Approved child care centers in Florida provide meals and snacks through CCFP to children age 12 or younger.
- Family day care homes provide meals and snacks to small groups of children receiving nonresidential day care in licensed or approved private homes.
- Emergency shelter providers also offer residential and food services to homeless families through the program to age group 18 and younger.
The program is federally funded and regulated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). In Florida, the Department of Health Bureau of Child Nutrition administers the program. Child care centers, Florida Head Start sites and licensed family child care home providers are eligible to participate.
Program Objectives
The main goal of the Florida Child Care Food Program (CCFP) is to make meals more accessible by making it affordable to children in need. The families living on a fixed budget cannot afford regular food and other expenses. The CCFP program helps such families to afford nutritious meals without compromising on the health of their children. This leads them to live a healthy lifestyle by incorporating healthy and nutritious food in their diet. Those healthy food items are given daily to the applicants which helps improve the daycare center conditions.
Program Benefits
The individual’s interest in the Florida Child Care Food Program (CCFP) has to find a child daycare center in their locality that participates in the CCFP program and to avail the program’s benefits. It is important to check if the daycare center is participating in the Florida Child Care Food Program (CCFP). You can go to the U.S. Department of Agricultureto check if the daycare centers are licensed to participate in the CCFP in the state of Florida.
In breakfast, the participants are provided with a serving of milk along with a fruit or vegetable or food that is rich in grains. For lunch is dinner, the meal includes meat or its alternative for people who are vegan or cannot have meat for certain medical reasons. Along with that, the meal contains milk, grain or bread, and there is an option between fruits and vegetables. For snacks, there is an option to choose from fruits, vegetables, grain or meat.
Eligibility Requirements
There are certain factors that determine your eligibility for the Florida Child Care Food Program (CCFP) and if you fulfill those requirements you can qualify for the program’s benefits. Those include,
- If the candidate is 12 years of age or younger than they are eligible for the CCFP program
- If the candidate is 15 years of age or younger and a migrant then they can apply for the CCFP program
- Candidates who are within 18 years of age, living in an emergency shelter homes are eligible for the CCFP program in Florida
- Children with impaired functioning living in the daycare centers are eligible for the CCFP program.
How to Apply
The applicant can use different methods to apply for the Florida Child Care Food Program (CCFP). It makes the whole process very flexible and applicants can choose the method more easy for them.
- To begin the application process, applicants can visit Management Information and Payment System (MIPS) CCFPweb page and can register as new user.
- If the applicant is interested in submitting their application in person, they can visit the nearby office.
- Licensed family child care home providers can participate in the CCFP through a sponsoring organization.
The application process takes very little time and once you finish the form you can wait for your confirmation number which will be provided to you shortly afterward. It is advisable to apply before the due date to be able to get the benefits of the Florida Child Care Food Program (CCFP).
For Further Information
For more information about the Florida Child Care Food Program (CCFP) you can visit this page. The web page provides complete and accurate information about the program. The above-mentioned web page will help you learn more about the program and its requirements related to the application process and eligibility criteria, the program’s working procedure, the types of meals served and more.
For more information contact the Child Care Food Program at: 850-245-4323