Sen. David Watters, a Dover Democrat, during a Senate session on Jan. 29, 2026. Watters is the prime sponsor of a bill that allows kinship guardians to access the Child Care Scholarship Program. (Photo by Maya Mitchell/New Hampshire Bulletin.)
The New Hampshire Senate voted to pass a bill Thursday that would allow retired grandparents to receive funds from the Child Care Scholarship Program without having to re-enter the workforce.
The scholarship helps eligible families subsidize the cost of child care by paying a portion of their tuition directly to a child’s provider. Currently, to be eligible, a parent or guardian must be employed, actively seeking employment, in school, or enrolled in a training program.
Senate Bill 608 proposes a change in eligibility for the New Hampshire Child Care Scholarship Program to remove the work requirement for kinship caregivers if they are retired and at the federal retirement age.
“Parents of children, for one reason or another, can’t take care of their children, and so these folks are stepping in,” said Sen. David Watters, a Dover Democrat and prime sponsor of the bill. “There’s loving family members to try and take care of children but they really do need some help when it comes to being able to [pay] for child care.”
The bill, if signed into law, will also require the state to ask the federal government if family care support services are “an allowable service” under the Acquired Brain Disorder, Choices for Independence, and Community-Based Services waiver programs.
Before the vote passed on the consent calendar, the Senate Health and Human Services committee voted unanimously, 5-0, in favor of the bill’s passing.
This bill puts the Granite State on par with two its neighbors, as Massachusetts and Maine both allow retired grandparents to be eligible for their child care assistance programs.
Kathy Dickey of Bow, a grandmother with custody of four of her grandchildren, testified during the committee hearing.
Dickey, 70, and her husband, 74, got custody of their eldest grandchild in 2017 and planned their 2018 retirement around him. They paid for his child care out of pocket before Emmitt, now 9, went to kindergarten.
In 2023, the Division for Children, Youth and Families dropped three additional grandchildren into their custody.
“Saying we were overwhelmed is an understatement,” Dickey said to the Bulletin. “It was a lot going from three to six overnight, and three that needed so much. They were little. They came from trauma and neglect.”
Dickey said it was a priority to get the children into child care to “get some structure” into their lives.
Last year, when Dickey and her husband decided to adopt the three youngest, now 6, 4, and 3 years old, they learned two hard truths.
The first was that the state would no longer cover the entire cost of child care, like it had when they were foster parents. Secondly, since they were retired, they were not eligible for the Child Care Scholarship Program.
“We were really taken aback,” she said. “I thought, ‘Wow, of all people that needed it, it’s grandparents.”
Susan LaBrie of Bedford also testified. When the 78-year-old and her husband obtained custody of their great-nephew, TJ, now 4, they explored state child care assistance. When she reviewed the eligibility requirements, LaBrie decided to return to school to qualify, as she could not otherwise afford child care tuition.
LaBrie described the experience as a “disaster.” Between paperwork issues — she had difficulty obtaining her high school transcripts from the 1960s and the correct documentation to show her husband’s Army discharge — and not understanding the university’s technology, LaBrie decided to pay for TJ’s day care with funds from their retirement fund.
“We don’t have any extra money,” she said. “It’s to give us a break, but also for him, for socialization. He had enough trauma the first five months of his poor life.”
LaBrie hopes to use the scholarship funds before TJ starts kindergarten next year.
The bill now heads to the House of Representatives, which will hold a hearing on it in the coming months.
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