A request that is in one of the following statuses: active, interviewing, offered, accepted, or declined.
MCC categorizes children into the following age groups:
- Infant – 0 through 11 months
- Pretoddler – 12 through 23 months
- Toddler – 24 through 35 months
- Preschool – 36 months through when child starts kindergarten
- School age – when a child starts kindergarten through the summer after seventh grade
Area of Responsibility: The AOR indicates the organizational level (branch, region, installation, program, or provider) at which a program user has access to view. Each user has customized permissions to view one or more programs in MCC based on his/her assigned area of responsibility. The options include:
Anticipated Placement Time, or APT, is the estimate of how long families can expect to wait for a child care space in the requested program. APT is not a guaranteed placement time and may be modified as a result of changes to the request (e.g., an update to the date care needed or a change in family type) or circumstances at the program.
Branch represents a military Service or other top-level organization (e.g., Defense Logistics Agency).
Services/Component can identify best practices associated to the standard. Best Practices are provided to the field to help with implementation and improve services.
Common Access Card
Within the MCC care structure, the care offering provides further refinement of the care services a program or FCC provider offers. Care offerings are only associated with the following four care options: School Year Care; School Year Care - Kindergarten; Pre-K Before and After School; and Summer Camp care. Programs that operate these care options have other services associated with them that cannot be conveyed at the care option level (i.e., before school care, after school care, etc.) and care offerings capture these distinct services in MCC. In the case of the Summer Camp care option, care offerings break down the summer camp into weekly sessions.
Within the MCC care structure, just as each program type has associated care types, each care type then defines the range of care options available. Care options provide more information such as when care starts and ends, specific age groups served, and the operating schedule. These attributes are important drivers in the family’s search for care process ─ allowing MCC to match the family’s care requirement to a specific program’s care options.
A care requirement is a bundle of requests a family submits for specific care types with the same date care needed at the same duty installation for a specific child. MCC uses the family’s care requirement to feed the search, request, and offer processes.
A care requirement is a bundle of requests a family submits for specific care types with the same date care needed at the same duty installation for a specific child. MCC uses the family’s care requirement to feed the search, request, and offer processes.
A requirement to provide child care to support eligible personnel and the military mission. Needs are established for children in priorities 1-3 who have requested custodial care types (i.e., full-day care, 24/7 care, school year care and/or summer camp). Child care needs are identified by families through MilitaryChildCare.com and are tracked per child.
Children that are within 30 days of the next age group or age range, except when describing the space for pretoddler. Children less than 12 months of age do not appear on the Make Offer list when describing space for pretoddler.
Combat-Related Wounded Warrior: To qualify as an Active Duty Combat-Related Wounded Warrior, the sponsor must be in active duty status and require hospitalization, extensive rehabilitation, or significant care from a spouse or care provider and require full-time child care.
Child and Youth Program: Facility-based program or FCC provider that provides child care services for children of DoD personnel from birth to 18 years of age (children, school-age, youth, and teens). MCC captures the military child care services that CYPs provide to children birth to 12 years of age.
Child and Youth Program: Facility-based program or FCC provider that provides child care services for children of DoD personnel from birth to 18 years of age (children, school-age, youth, and teens). MCC captures the military child care services that CYPs provide to children birth to 12 years of age.
Date Care Available: The DCA is identified during the offer process by the program and it indicates the earliest date that space is available for the child.
Date Care Needed: The DCN is the date the family has identified when they need care.
Department of Defense
Department of Defense Instruction
An offer for care that is made before the family's date care needed. When a family receives an early offer, they have the option to (1) accept the offer and start the enrollment process for the date the space is available, (2) decline the offer entirely, removing the request from the waitlist, or (3) stay on the program's waitlist and wait to receive another offer for care that is available on or after their DCN.
Individual who is responsible for oversight of their assigned FCC providers’ certification, onsite monitoring, and appropriate use of MCC. In the Navy, this person is referred to as the CDH Monitor.
An offer for care that meets all parts of a family’s request.
Inclusion Action Team: The installation-based team that supports programs in accommodating the needs of children and youth and assists program users in securing the necessary support and resources from the Chain of Command.
Immediate request: A request for care that is needed in 30 days or less.
A child care need that has not been met and is within 30 days of the date care needed (DCN) or the DCN has passed.
Inspection Management System
Installation represents a base, camp, post, station, yard, center, garrisons, fort or other activity and its geographic location.
MilitaryChildCare.com
MCC Central is a centralized location for all MCC resources, including training on how to use MCC, templates to conduct command briefs, and marketing and public affairs toolkits. MCC Central was created to support program users in their daily use of MCC.
Installation representative who works with the installation and the MCC Operations Center to ensure successful implementation of MCC.
Military Child Care in Your Neighborhood fee assistance program
Child care needs are met when the child receives an offer for the requested type of care from any program at the installation/metro zone.
A group of geographically clustered installations within or across Service. Metro Zones were established to:
Military family type is the eligibility categorization for military child care that is comprised of the following elements:
1. Sponsor type (e.g., Active Duty Military, DoD Civilian, etc.), and
2. Spouse status (e.g., working spouse, student spouse, spouse seeking employment, non-working spouse), if applicable.
Families select their sponsor type and spouse status when they create an MCC household profile and update it, as needed, when there are changes to their sponsor type, marital status, or spouse status. MCC uses this information to create a military family type for the household, each of which is associated with a DoD priority.
If the family has more than one care requirement for the same child at the same time at the same duty installation for different care types in the lists below, a need will be associated to all need-based care types. The need higher in the list will meet the need of all care types lower in the list.
Non-School Age Care:
School Age – In-session
School Age - Summer Camp
If a family receives an offer for the care type that provides the most comprehensive care, then the need is considered met for all associated care types.
Notifications may be email messages or dashboard notices displayed in the system.
Office of the Secretary of Defense
An offer for care that only meets part of the family's care request. When a family receives partial offer, they have the option to (a) accept the offer and remain on the waitlist for the remaining part(s) of their request, (b) decline the offer entirely, removing the request from the waitlist, or (c) stay on the program's waitlist and wait to receive a full offer for the entire request.
The number of days it took to meet a child’s need based on the difference between the DCN and the care availability date identified by the program during the offer process.
Projected request: A request for care that is needed more than 30 days in the future.
Pre-Kindergarten
Requests that families choose to keep for preferred programs after their child care need has been met. Children with preference requests are excluded from performance metrics and immediate and unmet need reporting.
The program type that captures the primary care types the program offers. Some programs may need to designate additional program types (referred to as a "secondary" program type(s)) to indicate that they serve additional age groups and/or care types not available through their primary program type.
Per DoDI 6060.02, military child care programs must serve the highest priority DoD families first to ensure the most mission-critical families receive access to military child care. DoD has assigned priorities to each military family type to ensure programs meet this requirement. In MCC, families are automatically assigned a priority based on their selected military family type (e.g., Active Duty W/Working Spouse, Single DoD Civilian).
In MCC, the program type determines the program’s general attributes (i.e., available care types, ages served) that will display on the program or provider profile, and determines what care options can be set up for the program. There are four program types in MCC: CDC, SAC, FCC, and 24/7 Center. Review the MCC Basics section of the reference guide for definitions of the different program types.
Reconfirm is a process designed to keep the waitlist up-to-date by requiring families to confirm, on a routine basis, that they still need care. The family will receive the initial notice plus two reminder messages, 5 calendar days apart, to reconfirm requests. All requests that are not reconfirmed are cancelled.
An area designated by geography or function (typically by service-level headquarters) that includes more than one installation.
Note: The Air Force typically identifies regions by using the term MAJCOM. Army typically uses the term IMCOM Directorates.
Request for Care date: The date a request for care is made and a key factor in determining waitlist sequence. If there is a waitlist, families will be added to the program's waitlist in order of the family's RFC date within their identified priority. This date cannot be updated by families or programs.
While some programs may only need one program type (referred to as the "primary" program type), to capture the age groups and care types they offer other programs may need to designate additional program types (referred to as a "secondary" program type) to capture care types not available through their primary program type.
Sibling preference allows families with more than one child on the waitlist to defer an offer for care if they prefer to wait to receive care until all siblings can be placed in the same program at the same time. CDC, SAC, and 24/7 programs are not authorized to make out-of-sequence offers but a family may defer an offer (with the deferral reason of "sibling preference") if they prefer to have siblings placed at the same time. There is no guarantee that a family will receive offers at the same time to accommodate siblings.
Sibling priority allows families with one child on the waitlist and one child enrolled in care to receive out-of-sequence offers to accommodate placement of siblings in the same location. FCC providers are authorized to make an offer out-of-sequence to accommodate placement of siblings regardless of the family's priority or placement on the waitlist. CDC, SAC, and 24/7 programs are not authorized to make out-of-sequence offers to prioritize siblings over other requests.
Sponsors are individuals with DoD affiliation, making them eligible patrons of military child care. Eligible sponsors include: Active Duty Combat-Related Wounded Warrior, Child & Youth Direct Care Employee, Active Duty Military, Guard/Reserve on Orders, Active Duty Coast Guard Personnel, DoD Civilian, Gold Star Spouse (Combat-Related), DoD Contractor, Other Federal Employee, and Military Retiree.
Child care needs are not met when a child has not received an offer for the requested type of care from any program at the installation/metro zone and the DCN has passed.
The number of days after their DCN that a child with an unmet need has been waiting for care.
To help programs meet the DoD requirement to serve the most mission-critical families first, MCC generates an automated waitlist sequence for each request for care submitted. MCC uses the following aspects of a request to calculate waitlist sequence: