Child Care Bureau Research

Overview

The Administration for Children and Families has a long history in child care research, with child care studies that date back to the early 1970s. These early studies laid the foundation for the Child Care Bureau’s (CCB) research agenda, which is designed to support decision makers in crafting child care policies that support positive outcomes. It is also intended to increase the capacity for child care research at the national, State, and community levels and to promote linkages among research, policy, and practice.

Beginning in FY 2000, Congress authorized the Bureau to spend $10 million annually in CCDF funds for research, demonstration, and evaluation. Based on recommendations obtained through a broad-based planning process that included an Health and Human Services task force, a two-day Child Care Research Leadership Forum, and a national call for input, CCB developed a strategic research agenda designed to build a solid research infrastructure and yield timely, useful information for child care policymakers.

The Child Care Bureau’s Research Priorities

The Child Care Bureau seeks to address the questions that are most relevant to Federal, State, and local community policymakers. These questions include—

• What are the effects of alternative child care subsidy policies and practices on children and families served?
• What are cost-effective investments in child care quality?
• What are the issues and outcomes related to caregiver professional development and training?
• How does school readiness vary among young children in a range of care settings, and what factors promote children’s early learning?
• What are promising models of coordination between child care and other services for children and families in the States?

Child Care Policy Research Consortium

During FYs 2000 through 2006, the Child Care Bureau (CCB) greatly expanded its national Child Care Policy Research Consortium (CCPRC) 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 and practice. Consortium members include individuals and organizations associated with research projects and partnerships funded by the Bureau. The consortium meets each spring to provide an opportunity for participants to highlight new research activities and findings, work collaboratively on important technical issues, consider emerging research and policy concerns, build cross-cutting partnerships and peer relationships, and produce new ideas for the next generation of research. Papers, posters, presentations, and discussion summaries from the meeting are posted on the Research Connections website (http://www.childcareresearch.org).

Child Care Bureau Research Grants and Contracts

• Child Care Research Partnerships
• Child Care Policy Research Projects
• Evaluation of Child Care Subsidy Strategies
• State Child Care Data and Research Capacity Projects
• Child Care Research Scholars
• Evaluation of Promising Models and Approaches to Child Care Provider Training-Quality Interventions for Early Care and Education (QUINCE) Project
• Task orders and contracts to support specialized policy and statistical analyses and translation of research into technical assistance materials and strategies.

• Child Care Research Partnerships. Since 1995, teams of policy makers, practitioners, and researchers through 12 research partnerships 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. Some go beyond a single State focus to region-wide coalitions that study crucial topics such as child care quality and characteristics of the child care work force as these themes play out in different State policy contexts and together have conducted research involving nearly half of the States and many local communities. Back to List of Grants and Contracts

• Child Care Policy Research Projects. The Child Care Bureau has funded over 30 projects to research a broad range of issues highlighted by policy makers in need of investigation. Topics include outcome assessment related to the quality of child care children receive; quality ratings of child care facilities; evaluation of parents’ choice of child care based on information about quality of care; availability of care for infants and toddlers, children with special needs, and underrepresented populations; child care workforce issues; administrative barriers that may affect access to child care; effects of subsidy receipt on employment; methodologies to set provider reimbursement rates; effects of state-wide professional development system on quality of care and child outcomes; effectiveness of professional development training models on quality, care-giving practices and child outcomes; and strategies that States and communities are implementing to improve their child care services and systems. Back to List of Grants and Contracts

• Evaluation of Child Care Subsidy Strategies. The Child Care Bureau contracted with Abt Associates, Inc. for a multi-state evaluation 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 and evaluation has concluded in Miami-Dade County, Florida, where the project conducted 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 were measured through classroom observations and child assessments related to school-readiness. Three additional experiments in Illinois, Washington, and Massachusetts are examining the impact of child care subsidy eligibility policies and alternative co-payment schedules on parental employment, income, and child care stability, (IL and WA, respectively), and the impact of family child care provider training on the Learning Games curriculum on quality of care and child outcomes. Back to List of Grants and Contracts

• 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, grant recipient designed more effective program systems able to identify outcomes for children, families and communities. Within each project, the primary goal was to create a State-wide research infrastructure to better understand child care needs, services, and outcomes for families in the context of social, economic and cultural change. Three States received grants in each of FY 2001 and FY 2002. The grantees worked together to address common issues and are collaborating with the Child Care Policy Research Consortium on the development of recommendations for State-level research infrastructure. Back to List of Grants and Contracts

• Child Care Research Scholars. Since 2000, the Child Care Bureau has funded 29 doctoral candidates to conduct dissertation research on child care issues. Since 2000, the Child Care Bureau has funded 29 doctoral candidates through the Child Care Research Scholar grants. Projects have examined the effects of child care disruptions on working parents; the cost-effectiveness of child care subsidies; and, tribal child care participation in state quality initiatives. Back to List of Grants and Contracts

• Evaluation of Promising Models and Approaches to Child Care Provider Training- Quality Interventions for Early Care and Education (QUINCE) Project. In FY 2003, CCB, in collaboration with 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 training models for center-based and family child care provider using experimental designs. Outcomes are being assessed in terms of caregiver’s knowledge, skills and practices as well as children’s early learning and literacy. The lead universities for this effort include the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and Georgetown Center for Health and Education at Georgetown University. Back to List of Grants and Contracts

• Task Orders and contracts to support specialized policy and statistical analyses and translation of research into technical assistance materials and strategies. Since 2005, three task orders have been funded to support policy analyses, statistical analyses of targeted datasets, and development of technical assistance plans and materials to inform policies and administrative practices of CCDF programs. New efforts will look at current policies and practices for the delivery of child care subsidies to TANF clients and those leaving TANF. Information from this effort will be used to track changes in policies and practices in response to new rules and regulations in place after TANF reauthorization and how these may affect CCDF child care subsidies to low-income, working parents. Back to List of Grants and Contracts
  • Child Care and Early Education RESEARCH CONNECTIONS (CCEERC). 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. It was funded through a cooperative agreement to the National Center for Children in Poverty (NCCP) at Columbia University and ICPSR at the University of Michigan. The site was launched in April 2004. Research Connections conducts literature reviews; develops and disseminates materials designed to improve child care policy research; provides technical assistance to researchers and policy makers; synthesizes findings into policy research briefs; and provides support to the Child Care Policy Research Consortium. Access the site at: www.childcareresearch.org. Back to List of Grants and Contracts
    
    
  • Interagency Efforts that Support the President’s Good Start, Grow Smart Initiative and other Departmental priorities.
    CCB actively supports interagency research initiatives within HHS as well as with the Department of Education, and collaborates with other Federal agencies on topics of interest to the program and the Department. Some efforts include: special analyses of the National Household Education Survey’s (NHES 2001and 2005) school readiness data; a workgroup to address issues of definition and measurement of professional development and training; roundtable meetings with field experts and Federal partner agencies to assess the status of the research on measurement of child care (including subsidy receipt) and employment; issues in assessment of quality of care and implications for policy and practice; and, special analyses of the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-birth Cohort data to answer questions about child care use, child care subsidy receipt and children’s participation in non-parental care, quality of care received and child developmental outcomes. Back to List of Grants and Contracts