Nicole Forry

Overview This report, Measuring Predictors of Quality in Early Care and Education Settings in the National Survey of Early Care and Education (NSECE), is intended as a methodological report on how selected predictors of quality can be measured using the NSECE data. It also provides descriptive data for each of the selected predictors of quality. Attributes of early care and education settings that contribute to quality are considered at the level of the individual teacher and caregiver, at the level of the classroom or home-based group, and at the level of the center-and home-based program at a single location. The data presented refer only to settings serving at least one child age five or under and not in kindergarten, though these settings may also serve older children. The NSECE is a set of four integrated, nationally representative surveys conducted in 2012. These were surveys of: 1) households with children under 13, 2) home-based providers of ECE, 3) center-based providers of...

The purpose of this Research Brief Series is to summarize key findings and implications from the Maryland Child Care Choices study, a two-year longitudinal survey of parents who were applying for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) in 2011. Families in the Maryland Child Care Choices study have at least one child age six or younger and lived in one of the following counties at the time of their first interview: Anne Arundel, Baltimore, Baltimore City, Calvert, Carroll, Montgomery, and Prince George’s.

The purpose of this Research Brief Series is to summarize key findings and implications from the Maryland Child Care Choices study, a two-year longitudinal survey of parents who were applying for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) in 2011. Families in the Maryland Child Care Choices study have at least one child age six or younger and lived in one of the following counties at the time of their first interview: Anne Arundel, Baltimore, Baltimore City, Calvert, Carroll, Montgomery, and Prince George’s.

Child care subsidies provide an important work support for low-income families, yet children often receive subsidies for only a short period of time and may cycle on and off the program. Much of the research to date on patterns of subsidy participation has focused on the duration of participation, and less attention has been paid to the dynamics of how often and how quickly children return to the program. This paper uses administrative data from Maryland to analyze the patterns of returns to the subsidy program after a break in subsidized care. We find that half of children who exited the program return to subsidy within five years, and most of those return within a few months. Returns to subsidized care are related to family circumstances, type of care, child age, and program policies related to eligibility redetermination. These factors have differential effects on the probability of returning to the same provider or a different provider, which may have important implications for the stability of children's care.

A major change in US child care subsidy policy in 2014 established a 12-month eligibility period for families participating in the child care subsidy program. The primary policy objective of lengthening eligibility periods was to increase the stability of child care. Previous research in a small number of states has shown that families are more likely to leave the subsidy program at the time of eligibility recertification even though they may remain eligible. Using data from the state of Maryland, this article investigates whether longer eligibility periods contribute to longer continuous subsidy receipt and the degree to which local offices follow state guidelines when setting redetermination periods. Using a Cox proportional hazards model and controlling for child, family, and provider characteristics, we show that families were substantially more likely to leave the subsidy program when their voucher was due to expire or they were scheduled to recertify eligibility. We find that ...

Instability in child care arrangements has been associated with poorer outcomes for children. For children in low-income families who receive child care subsidies, policymakers are concerned that short spells of subsidy use and cycling on and off the program may be disruptive to their child care arrangements. Thus, it is important to understand the dynamic patterns of subsidy use: how long children receive subsidies, and whether and how quickly they return to the program after they leave. In order to understand how long children continuously received subsidized care services, a " spell " of participation is defined as a series of consecutive months (or weeks) in which a child received care paid for in full or in part by a voucher (i.e., a child care subsidy), without a break. States vary in how they collect data on subsidy participation, typically using weekly or monthly units of time (although some have daily or biweekly data). The operationalization of the spell concept ...

Federal support has been improving states’ capacity to conduct child care policy research to guide this challenging process through partnerships with state governments and institutions of higher education. Three recipients of Research Cooperative Agreements awarded by the U. S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Administration for Children and Families—Virginia, South Carolina, and Maryland— illustrate subsidy programs’ transitions in this new data rich and educationally oriented environment.

With the passage of welfare reform, parents’ ability to not only obtain, but maintain work has become imperative. The role of child care subsidies in supporting parents’ job tenure has received little attention in the literature. This article examines the relationship between receiving a child care subsidy and the likelihood of experiencing a child care-related work disruption using two samples

Establishing and maintaining eligibility is a necessary precursor for families to be able to access subsidized child care services. State child care subsidy programs, like most social assistance programs, set policies regarding periodic re-review of families' eligibility for benefits. A recent federal policy proposal promotes the use of 12-month eligibility periods for families in the child care subsidy program. In order to provide insight for states that may be implementing longer eligibility periods, this brief examined the characteristics and evolution of eligibility periods over time in Maryland, which has a 12-month eligibility period policy. In Maryland, both six-month and 12-month eligibility periods are common, and longer eligibility periods have become more frequent since 2007. However, only about one-third of child care subsidy vouchers had eligibility periods of at least 48 weeks, and most were considerably shorter than 12 months. Eligibility redetermination can be a ...

ABSTRACT Research Findings: Few studies have described parents' child care decision-making process, yet understanding how parents make child care choices is fundamental to developing effective services to promote the selection of high-quality care. This study used latent profile analysis to distinguish subgroups of low-income parents identified as having commonalities in the number of options, duration, and sources of information sought as part of their child care decision-making process. Study participants included 260 parents who participated in the baseline wave of the Minnesota Child Care Choices study, a longitudinal phone survey of welfare applicants. Two subgroups of parents were identified. The majority of parents (82%) made choices within 2 weeks and considered on average 2 arrangements. Fewer than half of these parents considered information from experts, public lists, or family members/friends when making a child care choice. The remaining 18% of the sample took on average 11 weeks to make a child care choice, considered on average 3 options, and relied more heavily on information from experts and family members/friends. Practice or Policy: Findings from this study have implications for the marketing of resource and referral counseling services, Quality Rating and Improvement Systems, and consumer education aimed at facilitating the selection of high-quality care.