Family Child Care Research Articles

Extended family childcare arrangements in a context of AIDS: collapse or adaptation?

Families are subjected to a number of social, economic, political and demographic challenges. In recent years, the AIDS epidemic has constituted a major challenge for already poor families due to its wide reaching social, economic and health consequences. The devastating consequence of HIV and AIDS is being seen through the prolonged illness and death of family members of prime working age which impacts on family livelihoods and the ability to provide for and protect its members. This paper forms part of a review – commissioned by the Joint Learning Initiative on Children and HIV/AIDS – of qualitative studies of how families in southern Africa have changed, and are changing, as a result of the impact of HIV and AIDS. This paper presents results of how extended family childcare arrangements are changing as a result of the AIDS epidemic. In a southern African context, family denotes a wider array of relations than biological parents and their children – with children growing up amongst a multitude of relations sharing responsibility for their care and upbringing (Chirwa, 2002; Verhoef, 2005). Recently, there has been growing interest in the capacity of the extended family to care for the increasing number of children whose parents have died. However, literature on the role of the extended family in caring for orphaned children remains contradictory. One approach – the social rupture thesis (Chirwa, 2002) – suggests that the extended family network is collapsing under the strain of AIDS. On the other hand, families are portrayed as resilient and dynamic entities which are adapting their systems of childcare in response to the epidemic (Kuo,2007). In line with Abebe and Aase (2007) and Adams, Cekan, and Sauerborn (1998), this paper proposes a continuum of survival rather than a polarisation of extended family childcare arrangements.

State and Regional Variation in Regulations Related to Feeding Infants in Child Care

The purpose of this study was to compare state and regional variation in infant feeding regulations for child care facilities and to compare these regulations to national standards. We reviewed regulations for child care for all US states and Washington, DC, and examined patterns according to type of facility and geographic region. We compared state regulations with national standards for feeding infants in child care. The standards included were: (1) infants are fed according to a feeding plan from a parent or physician; (2) breastfeeding is supported by the child care facility; (3) no solid food is given before 6 months of age; (4) infants are fed on demand; (5) infants are fed by a consistent caregiver; (6) infants are held while feeding; (7) infants cannot carry or sleep with a bottle; (8) caregivers cannot feed >1 infant at a time; (9) no cow's milk is given to children <12 months of age; (10) whole cow's milk is required for children 12 to 24 months of age; and (11) no solid food is fed in a bottle. The mean number of regulations for states was 2.8 (SD: 1.6) for centers and 2.0 (SD: 1.3) for family child care homes. No state had regulations for all 11 standards for centers; only Delaware had regulations for 10 of the 11 standards. For family child care homes, Ohio had regulations for 5 of the 11 standards, the most of any state. States in the South had the greatest mean number of regulations for centers (3.3) and family child care homes (2.2), and the West had the fewest (2.3 and 1.9, respectively). Many states lacked infant feeding regulations. Encouraging states to meet best-practice national standards helps ensure that all child care facilities engage in appropriate and healthful infant feeding practices.

Operation Frontline's Program for Family Childcare Professionals: Addressing a Gap in Food and Nutrition Training

Identify a cooking-based, nutrition education program for home-based child care professionals that may be adapted to meet state meal and licensing requirements.

Physical Activity Programming in Family Child Care Homes: Providers' Perceptions of Practices and Barriers

Objective To examine family child care home (FCCH) providers' perceptions of appropriate physical activity (PA), current practices, and perceived barriers to inclusion of PA within their programs. Design A trained facilitator lead 4 focus group sessions of FCCH providers. Questions addressed providers' planning for PA, resources and barriers, and perceptions of children's engagement. Setting Family child care homes. Participants 32 FCCH providers (100% female) caring for children 6 weeks to 5 years old in predominantly mixed-age programs. Phenomenon of Interest Types of and extent to which PA was offered for children and perceived barriers to PA in this setting. Analysis Authors coded and analyzed transcriptions based on a socioecological framework using qualitative data analysis software. Results Majority of providers reported running and dancing to music as the most common PA, generally in an unstructured context. Frequency varied from none to twice a day. Few providers reported planning intentionally for PA; any plans followed children's interests. Barriers to inclusion of PA included personal, programming, parent, environmental, and financial reasons. Providers requested training on PA, particularly ideas for experiences in mixed-age groups. Conclusions and Implications Type, frequency, consistency, and duration of PA among FCCH homes vary widely. Implications include training on PA and resources tailored to the unique characteristics of family child care homes.

Diverse Pathways in Early Childhood Professional Development: An Exploration of Early Educators in Public Preschools, Private Preschools, and Family Child Care Homes

Research Findings: This article presents a naturalistic investigation of the patterns of formal education, early childhood education training, and mentoring of a diverse group of urban early childhood educators participating in the Los Angeles: Exploring Children's Early Learning Settings (LA ExCELS) study. A total of 103 preschool teachers and family child care providers serving primarily low-income 3- and 4-year-old children in Los Angeles County provided data on their education, training, and beliefs about teaching. This sample worked in public center-based preschool programs including Head Start classrooms and state preschool classrooms (n = 42), private nonprofit preschools including community-based organizations and faith-based preschools (n = 42), and licensed family child care homes (n = 19). This study used a person-centered approach to explore patterns of teacher preparation, sources of support, supervision, and mentoring across these 3 types of education settings and how these patterns are associated with early childhood educators' beliefs and practices. Findings suggest a set of linkages between type of early education setting, professional development, and supervision of teaching. Public preschools have the strongest mandates for formal professional development and typically less variation in levels of monitoring, whereas family child care providers on average have less formal education and more variability in their access to and use of other forms of training and mentorship. Four distinct patterns of formal education, child development training, and ongoing mentoring or support were identified among the educators in this study. Associations between professional development experiences and teachers' beliefs and practices suggest the importance of higher levels of formal training for enhancing the quality of teacher–child interactions. Practice or Policy: Implications of the findings for changing teacher behaviors are discussed with respect to the setting context.

The Impact of Professional Development in Family Child Care: A Practice-Based Approach

Research Findings: The purpose of this mixed methods study was to examine the efficacy of a practice-based approach to professional development for family child care providers working in low-income communities. This approach included a literacy coaching component that anchors knowledge in practice. One hundred and twenty-eight family child care providers were randomly assigned to three groups: a language and literacy course plus coaching, the course only, and control. Quantitative results revealed that providers who received the course plus coaching experienced statistically and educationally significant improvements in their literacy practice compared to the other two groups. Qualitative data described specific areas in early literacy that were improved as a result of this professional development intervention. Practice or Policy: Implications of these findings for child care policy and professional development programs for family child care providers are discussed

Managing Time and Childcare in Dual-Earner Families

The article documents how dual-earner families employ different household strategies when managing time and childcare in everyday life. In particular, the focus is the unforeseen consequences of household strategies, that is, novel emerging problems, cultural ideals and subjectivities. In this ethnographic study of eight middle-class couples in Sweden, I analyse three household strategies: delegating, alternating and multitasking. While parents apparently use these strategies to juggle the multiple demands of everyday life in a time-efficient way, they also comply with a norm of involved parenthood. Thus, when employing household strategies, the parents balance between enacting themselves as involved parents and running the risk of being understood as uninvolved.

The work–family support roles of child care providers across settings

This paper presents a qualitative investigation of the work–family support roles of a sample of 29 child care providers serving low-income families in the Chicago area (16 family, friend, and neighbor providers (FFN), 7 licensed family child care providers (FCC), and 6 center-based teachers). Providers report offering low-income parents substantial logistical (flexible hours, help with routines) and economic help (flexible fees, help with subsidies) managing work and family, in addition to their care of children. For FFN providers, support was often provided in the context of significant stress and burden. FCC providers and center-based teachers were often constrained in their help-giving by ambivalence regarding professional guidelines and institutional constraints. Findings from this study may inform future research on the effects of child care on children and parents, and models of child care quality.

Predictions of Children's Experiences With Latina Family Child Care Providers

Research Findings: Relatively little is known about the pre-academic experiences of Latino/a children in family child care. In this work we tested the extent to which previously established relations among provider characteristics, scaffolding and responsive behaviors, total quality (Family Day Care Rating Scale), and children's engagement in pre-academic activities would be found among low-income Latino/a children and providers. We observed total quality, scaffolding and responsive behaviors, and pre-academic activities in 115 family child care programs with Latino/a providers and children. Most providers had a high school education or less. There were positive and significant associations among provider education and training, total quality of the program, scaffolding and responsive behaviors, and children's participation in pre-academic activities. The providers' education level and scaffolding of children's activities were significant predictors of total quality. Environmental quality, provider scaffolding of children's activities, and responsive involvement predicted engagement in literacy, math, and science activities. Practice or Policy: Family child care providers' teaching strategies drive children's experiences in programs, a finding with implications for practice and policy.

Distinguishing Maltreating versus Nonmaltreating At-Risk Families: Implications for Foster Care and Early Childhood Education Interventions

Discriminant function (DF) analysis was used to distinguish 92 ethnically and socioeconomically diverse maltreating versus nonmaltreating families on indicators of socioeconomic status (SES) and parenting stress. Families included those with substantiated reports of child maltreatment ( n = 23), plus Head Start families ( n = 36), and child care families ( n = 33) without reports of maltreatment. The significant SES distinguishers were poverty and parental education and employment. The significant parenting stress distinguishers were parental self-reports of a dysfunctional parent–child relationship and difficult child temperament. Maltreating and Head Start families were similar in terms of poverty, but only the maltreating families had clinical levels of parenting stress. Implications for family therapy and early childhood education interventions are discussed.

Beliefs about mothers’ and fathers’ roles and the division of child care and household labor in Indo-Caribbean immigrants with young children.

Using a creolization conceptual framework, this study assessed beliefs about paternal and maternal roles, time spent in child care, and household labor among 60 Indo-Caribbean immigrant couples with young children. Analyses revealed belief systems about maternal and paternal roles that fell along traditional lines. Mothers invested significantly more time in major areas of child care and domestic labor than fathers did. Findings are discussed in terms of the lack of movement away from traditional gendered ideologies and the assumption of child care and household labor in Indo-Caribbean families in their new cultural community.

Promoting Child Development and Behavioral Health: Family Child Care Providers' Perspectives

Introduction Given the significant proportion of children in nonparental child care and the importance of early life experiences on development, interventions to improve a child care provider's ability to enhance a young child's development and behavior are essential. Such interventions require understanding of and responsiveness to the provider's self-perceived roles, responsibilities, and willingness to engage in such interventions, yet prior research is limited. The purpose of the study was to characterize licensed family child care provider perspectives as a first step toward designing effective provider-based interventions to improve children's development and behavior. Method We conducted a qualitative study using in-depth interviews with licensed family child care providers serving economically disadvantaged children. Interviews were audiotaped, transcribed, and synthesized into common themes using the constant comparative method of qualitative data analysis. Results The family child care providers described five domains related to their role in child development and behavior: (a) promotion, (b) assessment, (c) advising parents, (d) acknowledging barriers, and (e) their own skill development. Discussion The family child care providers we interviewed describe how the developmental and behavioral health of children is an important aspect of their role and identify innovative and feasible ways to enhance their skills. Understanding the self-perceived role, responsibility, and willingness of child care providers is an important foundation to designing effective interventions to achieve high-quality child care.

A Qualitative Study of Early Childhood Educators' Beliefs About Key Preschool Classroom Experiences

To learn about early educators' belief systems about the types of learning experience children should have in preschool prior to entering school, the authors conducted 11 focus group interviews with 75 early childhood educators from three learning settings: private center-based programs, public center-based programs, and family child care centers. Results from the qualitative data analyses showed that participants believe that when working with preschool-age children who will be entering kindergarten that the following dimensions should be considered: (1) the type of teacher-child interactions offered in the preschool setting, (2) what children's learning environment should consist of, and (3) the kinds of learning opportunities teachers offer. Each of these dimensions was made up of several factors. Although educators from all three types of early education programs mentioned these dimensions, the authors found variation within the factors that make up each dimension with differences between and within center type.

Illusions of Family Child-Care:

Illusions of Family Child-Care:

Child Care in Quebec

Five cycles of data from the Canadian National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth (1994/5–2002/3) were used to examine patterns of child care use in Quebec and the rest of Canada to explore the impact of Quebec’s implementation of universal child care. Rates of overall use as well as use of regulated (child care centre, family child care) and non-regulated care (sitter, nanny, relative, family child care) were examined for preschoolers aged 0–5 years in Quebec as compared to the other provinces and by family household income. Chi-square tests were used to examine significance of differences. Since the implementation of Quebec’s child care program, Quebec demonstrated substantial increases in child care use, particularly in the use of regulated care (from 10% prior to program compared to 30% by 2002) whereas the use of unregulated care did not demonstrate a significant increase in Quebec as compared to the other provinces (1994 to 2002). Furthermore, the use of regulated care by low-income families was greater in Quebec than elsewhere in Canada, although the greatest increase in use of regulated care was for children from high-income families. Findings suggest that since the introduction of Quebec’s universal child care program, there was an increase in the use of regulated child care for families of preschoolaged children in the province, although by 2002 Quebec had not achieved the coverage of universal child care programs attained by many European countries.

Young children’s access and use of computers in family child care and child care centers

Forty eight family child care providers and 37 center-based providers completed surveys about the availability and use of computers for children in their care. In addition, the providers were asked about their attitudes towards technology and their own computer skills. The impact of setting type on computer placement and rules about their use did not differ very much by setting type. Several factors were associated with the amount of time children were reported to use the computers. Overall, it appears that child care providers had developmentally sensitive guidelines for fostering computer use in both child care settings.

Family Child Care Providers' Experience in Health Promotion

Family child care providers may be well-suited to provide health promotion to young children and their families. The investigators conducted a qualitative study using in-depth interviews with family child care providers serving low-income children. Child care providers perceive that they have an important role in health promotion, including (1) the child's physical health, (2) the child's development, and (3) supporting and educating parents, and are willing to assume this role in the context of collaborative relationships with parents. Providing education and ongoing support to child care providers in developing collaborative partnerships may enhance opportunities for health promotion in this setting.

Reducing the Risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome in Child Care and Changing Provider Practices: Lessons Learned From a Demonstration Project

The goal was to evaluate, through an American Academy of Pediatrics demonstration project, the effectiveness of a curriculum and train-the-trainer model in changing child care providers' behaviors regarding safe infant sleep practices. Participating licensed child care centers and family child care homes were assigned randomly to intervention and control groups. Observers performed an initial unannounced visit to each site, to watch infants being placed for sleep, to inventory sleep policies, and to administer questionnaires to center staff members. Trainers then used the American Academy of Pediatrics curriculum in educational sessions at intervention sites. Three months later, observers conducted a follow-up observation at each site, and staff members completed a questionnaire about logistic barriers encountered in implementation of safe sleep recommendations. A total of 264 programs and 1212 providers completed the study; the care of 1993 infants was observed. Provider awareness of the American Academy of Pediatrics infant supine sleep position recommendation increased from 59.7% (both groups) to 64.8% (control) and 80.5% (intervention). Exclusive use of the supine position in programs increased from 65.0% to 70.4% (control) and 87.8% (intervention). Observed supine placement increased from 51.0% to 57.1% (control) and 62.1% (intervention). A sudden infant death syndrome risk reduction curriculum using a train-the-trainer model is effective in improving the knowledge and practices of child care providers. Perceived parental objections, provider skepticism about the benefits of supine positioning, and lack of program policies and training opportunities are important barriers to implementation of safe sleep policies. Continued education of parents, expanded training efforts, and statewide regulations, mandates, and monitoring are critical to ongoing efforts to decrease further the risk of sudden infant death syndrome in child care.

A small-scale randomized efficacy trial of Carescapes: Enhancing children’s social development in child care homes

The quality of the child care environment and caregiver practices can potentially have significant, lasting impact on children's social development. This study involves the development and a small-scale efficacy trial of the Carescapes program, a video-based training program that focuses on promoting positive social development in young children attending family child care. Fifty-seven caregivers who provided child care in their homes were randomly assigned to immediate intervention or waitlist control groups. Random coefficients analyses showed significant increased use of effective behavior management practices and decreased overall children's problem behavior for the intervention group. A mediation model demonstrated that increases in effective behavior management practices were associated with decreases in problem behavior. A medium intervention effect was found for caregiver's monitoring and a small effect for use of positive attention. These effects declined 5 months following the intervention. Implications for future efficacy and effectiveness studies in family child care settings that involve strategies to facilitate maintenance are discussed.

Family, friend, and neighbour child care providers and maternal well‐being in low‐income systems: An ecological social perspective

Integrating theory from the family ecological systems and social support literatures with findings from child care research, in this study we develop and test a model relating family, friend, and neighbour (FFN) child care provider characteristics to perceived child care quality (provider reports of caregiving behaviours, mother‐provider caregiving relationship) and maternal well‐being (work‐family conflict, depressive symptoms). Results from phone interviews with 187 FFN providers receiving public subsidies indicated that even after controlling for familial status or household income, caregiver perceptions of higher quality care were associated with higher education levels, greater attachment to child care as a job; and lower provider depressive symptoms. After controlling for familial status, data analysed from a subset of 51 mother‐provider pairs, indicated that mothers using care from providers who reported higher quality parent‐caregiver social relationships reported lower work‐family conflict and depressive symptoms. This study suggests mothers who have providers with whom they have good caregiving interactions may experience positive social support and psychological crossover dynamics associated with mother well‐being.