Cutting Through Complexity Using Behavioral Science to Improve Indiana’s Child Care Subsidy Program

This report describes collaboration between the Indiana Office of Early Childhood and Out-of-School Learning and the Behavioral Interventions to Advance Self-Sufficiency research team. That collaboration focused on the design and evaluation of three behavioral interventions aimed to improve outcomes at two points in the administration of Indiana’s Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF):

• When parents enroll in CCDF and must select a child care provider, and;
• When they renew their subsidies

The first intervention aimed to increase the percentage of parents who used their CCDF subsidies to pay for child care providers in the state’s quality rating and improvement system and to increase the selection of highly rated providers. The second and third interventions aimed to improve the CCDF redetermination process.

Findings indicate that the first intervention did not increase the percentage of families who selected programs in the state’s quality rating and improvement system overall. However, receiving a revised information packet and a phone call did increase the percentage of families who used highly rated providers. The second intervention increased the percentage of parents who attended their first scheduled redetermination appointment and increased the percentage of parents who completed the redetermination process in one appointment but did not change the likelihood that parents would renew on time. The third intervention increased the percentage of parents who attended their first scheduled redetermination appointment and the percentage of parents who renewed on time.