Behavioral Insights for Child Care: Lessons from the BIAS Project

The Behavioral Interventions to Advance Self-Sufficiency project conducted randomized controlled trials of behavioral interventions at two child care agencies in Indiana and Oklahoma. This brief provides an overview of the interventions the BIAS team designed in partnership with these sites, which targeted two primary problems:

1. Many parents who receive Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) vouchers do not select a highly rated provider, even in states that have a standardized system for rating provider quality,.
2. Some parents who are required to periodically document their continued eligibility for CCDF subsidies do not complete this process on time, which can lead to gaps in service, loss of funds for providers, and increased administrative burden for agencies.

One-page site summaries in this brief detail the problem or problems of interest at each agency, the behavioral intervention(s) implemented to address each of those problems, and the findings from the tests of the interventions.