Child Care and Development Fund, Report to Congress for Fiscal Years 2002 and 2003
FY 2002 AND FY 2003 RESEARCH ACTIVITIES
CCB's research projects support implementation of Federal and State priorities including supporting employment for low-income families and the President's early learning initiative, Good Start, Grow Smart. They involve sophisticated research methodologies including quasiexperimental and experimental designs. Several national evaluations have been launched to examine variations in State child care policies and explore promising approaches to child care provider training. In addition, CCB is investing in efforts to increase State capacity for research and data analysis, encourage doctoral students to choose careers in child care research, and improve research quality and usefulness through the Child Care Policy Research Consortium and the Child Care and Early Education Research Connections Web site (www.childcareresearch.org). Collaborative relationships with other Federal agencies and national organizations are being strengthened, and many studies now involve partnerships that bring together diverse constituencies and research interests.
The following provides an overview of CCB's research initiatives in FY 2002 and FY 2003.
Child Care Policy Research Consortium
During FY 2002 and FY 2003, CCB continued to expand its national Child Care Policy Research Consortium of grantees and contractors. The purpose of this consortium is to help CCB increase national capacity for sound child care research, identify and respond to critical issues, and link child care research with policy, practice, and consumer demand. As part of its responsibility to foster child care research and dissemination of research findings, in collaboration with CCB, the Consortium sponsored annual meetings in FY 2002 and FY 2003. Members of the consortium participated in panel discussions, workshops, and poster board sessions to explore current issues facing researchers and policymakers.
As a result of the Consortium's activities, child care researchers across the country are working in collaboration with policymakers and practitioners on studies that are timely and interdisciplinary. Members work to develop improved consensus about child care data definitions, measures, and methods. They are also creating longitudinal data sets from child care subsidy systems, regulatory information systems, resource and referral systems, and other key sources. Finally, members are producing new studies that examine interrelationships among programs and their effects on families and children, as well as some that replicate existing studies in different States and communities.
Child Care and Early Education Research Connections
Research Connections is a Web-based, interactive database of research documents and public use data sets for conducting secondary analyses on topics related to early care and education. The project-
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Conducts literature reviews
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Develops and disseminates materials designed to improve child care policy research
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Provides technical assistance to researchers and policymakers
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Synthesizes findings into policy research briefs
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Provides support to the Child Care Policy Research Consortium
CCB entered into a cooperative agreement in FY 2003 with the National Center for Children in Poverty (NCCP) at Columbia University and the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) at the University of Michigan for ongoing development and operations. The project was publicly launched in FY 2004 and can be found at www.childcareresearch.org.
Child Care Research Partnerships
Since 1995, teams of policymakers, practitioners, and researchers have studied State and local child care markets using data collected by States and communities in the course of operating subsidy, licensing, and resource and referral programs. In recent years, the partnerships have moved beyond a single State focus to multi-State consortia that study crucial topics such as child care quality and characteristics of the child care workforce as these themes play out in different State policy contexts. Several of these partnerships have provided State and cross-State information on child care needs, utilization patterns, and outcomes for low-income families. The partnership projects have conducted research involving nearly half of the States and many local communities. Four Child Care Research Partnership projects awarded in FY 2000 continued their research through FY 2001, FY 2002, and FY 2003.
Child Care Policy Research Grants
CCB has funded 24 Child Care Policy Research Grants to study a broad range of issues highlighted by policymakers and investigators in the field. Topics include-
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Outcome assessment related to the quality of child care children receive
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Quality ratings of child care facilities
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Evaluation of parents' choice of child care based on information about quality of care
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Availability of care for infants and toddlers, children with special needs, and underrepresented populations
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Child care workforce issues
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Administrative barriers that may affect low-income families' access to child care
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Strategies States and communities are implementing to improve their child care services and systems
In FY 2002, 3 new unsolicited grants were awarded, and 12 continued from previous years. In FY 2003, 14 grants awarded in prior years were continued. See appendices for descriptions of the new grants awarded in FY 2002.
Evaluation of Child Care Subsidy Strategies
In FY 2001, ACF contracted with Abt Associates Inc. for a multi-State evaluation (up to four subsidy strategy evaluations) to study the impact, implementation, cost, and benefits of various child care subsidy strategies. This evaluation will expand the knowledge of subsidy policies by assessing causality through experimental design. Implementation is underway in Miami-Dade County in Florida. Miami-Dade County is conducting an experimental test of the effects of training child care providers to implement three early language and literacy curricula in centers serving low-income and subsidized preschoolers. Outcomes will be measured through classroom observations and child assessments related to school readiness.
State Child Care Data and Research Capacity Projects
These projects assist State CCDF Lead Agencies in developing greater capacity for policy-relevant research and analysis. In partnership with research organizations, these States are designing more effective child care policies and programs with identifiable outcomes for children, families, and communities. Within each project, the primary goal is to create a statewide research infrastructure to better understand child care needs, services, and outcomes for families in the context of social, economic, and cultural change. In FY 2002, three States were awarded 3-year grants, and three grants were continued from FY 2001. These six grants continued through FY 2003. The grantees work together to address common issues and are collaborating with the Child Care Policy Research Consortium on the ongoing development of a national State-by-State research infrastructure. See appendices for descriptions of the new grants awarded in FY 2002.
Child Care Research Scholars
Since FY 2000, CCB has funded doctoral candidates to conduct dissertation research on child care issues. In FY 2002, 3 new scholars were awarded grants, and 6 scholars were awarded grants in FY 2003, bringing the total number of funded scholars to 18. Scholars examined topics such as-
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Informal care in a Tribal community
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Training strategies for providers of infant and toddler care
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The impact of kindergarten entrance age policies on families' child care needs
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State policies for early childhood education
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The impact of child care on women's employment
Nearly all scholars from the first two waves have completed their dissertations, and several have been published in peer-reviewed journals.
Evaluation of Promising Models and Approaches to Child Care Provider Training
In FY 2003, CCB, in collaboration with the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE), awarded two cooperative agreements to a consortium of seven academic institutions along with their partners in State and local agencies and community organizations. The consortium is evaluating the effectiveness of two onsite training models and will assess outcomes related to knowledge, skills, and practices, as well as children's early learning and literacy. The lead universities for this effort include the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Georgetown University.
Interagency Efforts that Support the President's Good Start, Grow Smart Initiative
CCB actively supports interagency research initiatives within HHS as well as with the Department of Education. These efforts include(d)-
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Enhanced analyses of the National Household Education Survey (NHES) 2001 Early Childhood Program Participation data. Indicators of emerging literacy and numeracy will be analyzed by family background characteristics and type of early childhood program participation. Analysis will begin in early FY 2004, and these variables will be tracked across future NHES data collection waves to determine trends in the proportion of children ready for school on those learning domains. This information will be used to help CCB track progress on long-term school readiness measures.
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Partnership with the ACF Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation to complete the National Study of Child Care for Low-Income Families. Research findings were released in 2004-2005. A forthcoming report entitled Care in the Home: A Description of Family Child Care and the Experiences of Families and Children That Use It examines the experiences of children and their providers-including factors that relate to early learning and literacy-as well as what parents consider when selecting their children's care. Another report also forthcoming, Patterns of Child Care Use Among Low-Income Families, looks at family child care decisionmaking.
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An interagency meeting in February 2003 to assess current knowledge about the characteristics of the early care and education workforce, including professional development and training. In follow-up, CCB is taking the lead in the spring 2005 publication of an edited book of critical issues in early care and education professional development and recommendations for future research. It also sponsored a roundtable in February 2004 that explored definitions related to the professional development of the early care and education workforce in research, systems, and practice.
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Identification of workplace policies and practices to improve the health and well-being of workers, their families, and communities. In 2003, the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) led an initiative that included a workshop entitled Workplace Policies and Practices To Improve Health and Well-Being. Future studies funded by NICHD will employ rigorous methodologies to test workplace policies and practices across a variety of workplace settings.
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A partnership with other HHS agencies to support the Evaluation Data Coordination Project (EDCP). Carried out by the American Institute for Research, EDCP is aimed at facilitating the use of data sets for secondary data analysis among administrators and researchers and encouraging common measurement in future studies. Nine HHS studies are involved in the assessment of data and survey instruments.