Low Income Families Search for Quality Child Care Four Community Profiles

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Low Income Families Search for Quality Child
CareFour Community Profiles

• Demetra Evangelou Susan Kontos Jim Elicker
• Department of Child Development and Family
  Studies
  
• Purdue University
• West Lafayette, IN 47907-1269
• USA
• Research funded by the U.S. Department of Health
  and Human Services

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Outline

• Overview of study
• Community Child Care Research Project (CCCRP)
• Purpose
• Methods
• Findings
• Implications

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Indiana The crossroads of America

• Population 6,080,485 ethnic
• Capitol city Indianapolis
• Median income for 4 person family 62,097
• 15.4 of children under 5 in poverty (national
  20.8)
  
• Unemployment rate 5
• More exempt care than other states
• 34 single parent household
• 7.3 LBW
• 90.000 children in subsidized care

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Research Questions

• Types of child care settings low income working
  poor families use
  
• Problems in finding and maintaining child care
  arrangements
  
• Flexibility in the child care arrangements and in
  employment conditions
  

Community Variations
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Project Overview
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Population

• Working poor families
• Families that earn 35,000 or less/year
• Training/in school/working
• Single mother/absent father
• Very young
• Multiple children
• Not receiving TANF (welfare)

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Purpose

• Describe the difficulties experienced by low
  income working poor families in finding and
  maintaining child care for their children
  
• Understand the process by which families find and
  maintain reliable, affordable and acceptable in
  quality child care
  

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Methodology

• Child Care Expert key Informant Interviews
• Semi structured phone interviews
• Parent Focus Groups
• Semi structured face to face interviews
• State Data

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General findings

• Parents
• Safety trust
• Who should care for the children
• Child age
• The subsidy cycle
• Employer involvement
• Flexible hours
• Transportation

• Experts
• Rising demand
• Parent education
• Improve quality
• Provider training
• Alternative forms
• Subsidies

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Child Care Settings in the Four Counties
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Locating Child Care

• Allen
• Try to keep my kids at home, you know under my
  wings
  
• Lake
• People who work there they make it hard for
  you
  
• Marion
• Look around the neighborhood, make appointments,
  internet
  

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Flexibility

• Allen
• They dont care what your excuse is..they have
  no sympathy for people with kids
  
• Marion
• ..so it would be nice sometime to know that ok
  its Tuesday and my kids can be there and I am
  going to do grocery shopping
  
• St. Joseph
• Child care centers should be available you know
  for working parents during the day and also
  students in the evening

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Problems

• Allen
• The vicious circle that goes
• Lake
• It was so inflexible that it was impossible to
  work the three to eleven shift
  
• Marion
• I dont like that sometimes a lot of teachers
  are coming and goingget some good teachers and
  pay them a little more so they can stay.
  
• St. Joseph
• I did not want her in a home day care because
  she basically when the kids go there they watch
  cartoons and thats what they did all day long

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Financial Resources

• Allen
• Child care is expensive, my daughter is 180 a
  weekif it wasnt for the voucher agent I
  wouldnt have been able to pay for it.
  
• Lake
• You know it is impossible at 7.85 an hour
• Marion
• look at us we are all single mothers, we all
  work 40/50 hours a week just to pay the rent.I
  dont know what I would have done
  
• St. Joseph
• If I make anything more than what I make,
  theyll pull my child care

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Dreaming

• Allen
• An ideal child care would be affordable and you
  know that your child is watched like a hawk every
  second
  
• Lake
• Trust, trusting relationship with your kids,
  dependable, pick them up, drop them off and it
  just really trusting somebody
  
• Marion
• You can drop them off whenever you want to
• St. Joseph
• Longer hours, come to my home

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Community

• Allen
• Affordable and closer to work places
• Marion
• If you qualify for this program and send our
  child to day care so you can go to work
  
• St. Joseph
• People that are working and going to school and
  trying to do the right thing should get the extra
  help
  

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Planning for a rainy dayLow income working poor
families

• Supports
• Family
• Subsidies
• Challenges
• Single parents
• Safety/trust
• Need for back up care
• Fragile balance

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Implications

• Child care quality
• Parental education/expectations
• Accessibility
• Flexibility
• Affordability
• Employer support
• Policy design

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• THANK YOU