University of Nevada, Reno (UNR) students who have young children have access to affordable child care services through a new program that offsets up to 90% of their annual child care tuition. CCAMPIS—an acronym for Child Care Access Means Parents in School—is funded through the U.S. Department of Education to help student-parents stay on track to completing their degree.
Maritza Machado-Williams is co-director of the CCAMPIS program at UNR and director of the First-Generation Student Center. She said the program is transformative, not just for its child care components. Additional services including peer mentoring, tutoring, academic planning, and financial aid workshops.
“CCAMPIS is not just a child care grant. It’s a retention program,” Machado-Williams said.
Child care on campus is provided by the Child and Family Research Center (CFRC), part of the university’s College of Education and Human Development and one of the highest quality child care programs in the state. The center provides care for children ages 6 months to 6 years, but for now is recruiting CCAMPIS participants with children ages 3-4 years old.
CFRC staff said they hope to expand the program soon, but for now are limited by physical space.
“In order to deliver this continuity for student-parents in the future, we are actively studying ways to increase the number of on-campus childcare spots for the youngest members of our campus community – infants and toddlers,” said Melissa Burnham, department chair of Human Development, Family Science and Counseling.
Interested parents who are either undergraduate or graduate students at UNR and Pell grant-eligible can apply for the program here. For now, the CCAMPIS program is accepting applications on a continuous rolling basis.
Source: UNR
