Traditionally a child development provider kept a list of children waiting to enroll. Waiting lists were common to subsidized child care and development programs. The Santa Clara County CEL is a system that combines all of these separate lists, eliminates duplicates, and allows subsidized child development providers to find children that are eligible for their programs. The term "eligibility" is used because families are ranked by eligibility factors such as income, size and need.

See Commonly Asked Questions for more information on programs that still maintain individual eligibility (waiting) lists for subsidized services.

Benefits
Santa Clara County CEL enables families to have access to all programs for which they qualify by submitting one application to the Santa Clara County CEL agency. Families can also apply at any of the participating child development providers, expanding their opportunity to access subsidized care. Providers can potentially pull from a wider net of eligible families allowing their programs to be kept fully enrolled. Communities and counties can plan better to address the demand for child care. Local, state and federal funding can be more focused to address the needs of eligible waiting families. CEL also supports local leaders in their decision making and planning for affordable quality child care.

How 4Cs administers CEL

• Collects family/child application data
• Maintains eligibility lists of applying families/children according to state eligibility rules for State contracted programs
• Supports State contractors to share eligible family/child data for enrollment
• Maintains contact information for participating child development programs