Early REACH (Raising Educational Access for Children in Harris County), a collaborative early childhood initiative launched to expand high-quality child care access and strengthen the local early learning system, has concluded at the end of its current grant period on September 30, 2026
What is Early REACH (Raising Educational Access for Children in Harris County)?
The Early REACH program created 800-1,000 new spaces within existing high-quality child care programs to serve additional children across Harris County. Developed with the input of stakeholders across the county, this program is meant to pilot a new approach to funding child care for young children, as well as support child care centers recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic, which caused many centers across the county to close.
Early REACH supported families and young children, child care centers, and the early childhood workforce in the following ways:
- Families across Harris County can enroll children aged 0 to 4 in the selected childcare centers at no cost to them in order to support them to go to school or work.
- Childcare centers that have applied and been selected to participate in the program will receive a contract for a specific number of childcare spaces and will be paid, in advance, a per-child cost that supports high-quality services. Centers will be selected based on their quality and ability to expand
- Early childhood educators in participating classrooms will receive increased compensation (compared to the average of $12/hour) and enhanced training and support.