Child Care for Low Income Families: A Community Landscape Approach

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Child Care for Low Income FamiliesA Community
Landscape Approach

• Susan Kontos Jim Elicker Demetra Evangelou
• Community Childcare Research Project (CCCRP)
• 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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Abstract

• Indiana is a state where a high proportion of
  child care programs are exempt from licensing and
  in which many child care spending decisions are
  made at the county level. The goal of the
  proposed research is to describe how communities
  vary in the funding and provision of child care
  services to low income families, to investigate
  how these community variations affect the quality
  of care received by children from low income
  families and relate these factors to childrens
  developmental outcomes. The research employs an
  integrated design, using existing data,
  qualitative data, and quantitative data to
  describe and compare the child care landscapes
  in four diverse Indiana communities, identifying
  the community level variables that are most
  strongly associated with the type and quality of
  care selected by working poor families.

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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
Phase I Oct. 10/2001-4/2002 County profiles Phase II 6/2002-9/2004 Context factors, child care quality and child/family outcomes
Child Care Expert Interviews Parent Focus Group Interviews State Data Community context factors child care supply, subsidies, RR quality improvement efforts Child care factors type, challenges, dosage, flexibility Quality Structural, Process Family factors parent education, employment, income, ethnicity Work factors Child Development Cognitive and social development, school readiness, parent/teacher rating, observations of child behavior in setting Parent Employment - Number of hours employed, productivity (absenteeism), longevity
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Population

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

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Phase I 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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Phase I Methodology

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

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Findings Important Issues

• Experts
• Rising demand
• Alternative forms of care
• Subsidies
• Provider training
• Parent education

• Parents
• Locating Child Care
• Flexible hours
• Quality of services
• Financial resources
• Ideal situations
• Community role

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Locating Child Care

• Try to keep my kids at home, you know under my
  wings (parent in Allen Co.)
• There is a need and it will continue to grow
  statewide, funding does not meet demand (child
  care expert in Marion Co.)
• People who work there they make it hard for you
  (parent in Lake Co.)
• The demand is growing but the resources are not
  growing as fast, it will be similar in the future
  for low income families (child care expert in
  Allen Co.)
• Look around the neighborhood, make appointments,
  internet (parent in Marion Co.)
• a lot of people look for providers among their
  friends and family members (child care experts
  in St. Joseph Co.)

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Need for Flexibility

• They dont care what your excuse is..they have
  no sympathy for people with kids (parent in
  Allen Co.)
• ..more infant-toddler care, many working poor
  have infants because they are young and just
  starting (child care expert in Marion Co.)
• ..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 (parent in Marion
  Co.)
• It was so inflexible that it was impossible to
  work the three to eleven shift (parent in Lake
  Co.)
• Child care centers should be available you know
  for working parents during the day and also
  students in the evening (parent in St. Joseph
  Co.)

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Child Care System Challenges

• The vicious circle that goes (parent in Allen
  Co.)
• we have been losing skilled workforce because of
  child care issues over the past 5-10 years, small
  industry developing in more rural counties buses
  people in and out (child care expert in Allen
  Co.)
• 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. (parent
  in Marion Co.)
• Indiana needs to tie licensing to funding, link
  education and licensing and public money (child
  care expert in Lake Co.)
• 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
  (parent in St. Joseph Co.)

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Financial Challenges

• 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. (parent
  in Allen Co.)
• families I work with in this income range, they
  struggle because they are trying to find jobs and
  child care is not affordable. (child care expert
  in St. Joseph Co.)
• You know it is impossible at 7.85 an hour
  (parent in Lake Co.)
• Free flow of voucher money underground
  economics (child acre expert in Lake Co.
• 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 (parent in
  Marion Co.)
• If I make anything more than what I make,
  theyll pull my child care (parent in St. Joseph
  Co.)

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What would be ideal?

• An ideal child care would be affordable and you
  know that your child is watched like a hawk every
  second (parent in Allen Co.)
• The mentoring program is also very good and from
  the pass the quality program, they providers
  get money every time they move to higher
  training level (child care expert in Allen Co.)
• Trust, trusting relationship with your kids,
  dependable, pick them up, drop them off and it
  just really trusting somebody (parent in Lake
  Co.)
• You can drop them off whenever you want to
  (parent in Marion Co.)
• the RR is very supportive, it is pushing
  parents to understand quality and a lot of
  providers are choosing to become accredited
  (child care expert in Allen Co.)
• Longer hours, come to my home (parent in St.
  Joseph Co.)

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The Role of the Community

• Affordable and closer to work places (parent in
  Allen Co.)
• This community is unique in its awareness of the
  issues. It is quite universal, the universities,
  the chamber of commerce, the work force
  development office, universal awareness (child
  care expert in St. Joseph Co.)
• If you qualify for this program and send our
  child to day care so you can go to work (parent
  in Marion Co.)
• People that are working and going to school and
  trying to do the right thing should get the extra
  help (parent in St. Joseph Co.)

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Implications
Low income working poor families Supports Family members provide most of the back up child care Reliance on subsidies to break the vicious cycle Challenges Majority of parents are single mothers They need to feel that their children are safe and well cared by trustworthy professionals Flexibility and back up care are needed Maintaining the fragile balance of child care-work and self-sufficiency Critical/unresolved issues The following need to be addressed in order to provide low income working poor families with viable solutions for child care Quality of services by trained professionals Parental education to demand quality services Child care that is supported by employers, offers flexible hours, is close to home and is affordable Policy design to better address quality and assistance to low income working poor families