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Early Care and Education Choices, Quality and Continuity for Low-Income Families: A Maryland-Minnesota Research Partnership
Tout, Kathryn, 2010
Child Trends

Maryland and Minnesota are two states that have been leading innovations across early care and education policy and simultaneously investing in research and data infrastructure to ensure that their strategies are informed by evaluation and new evidence in the field. This project creates a Maryland-Minnesota Child Care Research Partnership, bringing together two states committed to examining critical issues in early care and education and using research findings to inform policy with an interdisciplinary team of researchers experienced in conducting studies on subsidy policy, quality improvement strategies, family experiences and child outcomes. Three cross-state sub-studies serve as the foundation for the work of the Partnership: (1) How families seek and process information about early care and education; (2) How families value and weigh different features of the quality of arrangements; and (3) Factors affecting and antecedents of child care stability/child care subsidy continuity. The studies were developed to build on existing research projects in both Maryland and Minnesota to maximize the investments made in development and data collection and to facilitate cross-state application of the learning. The research questions included: (1) How do families describe the process of making decisions about early care and education and what are the milestones in this process; (2) What family and community characteristics predict subsidy use and the type and quality of early care and education arrangements chosen; (3) What are parents' perceptions of family-sensitive caregiving, developmentally appropriate instructional practices, and practices that support children's social and emotional development, and to what extent are aspects of quality important to parents; (4) Which provider demographic characteristics distinguish those with a greater orientation towards family-sensitive caregiving, developmentally appropriate instructional practices, and practices that support children's social and emotional development; (5) What child, family, and community factors are associated with frequent changes in arrangements and what factors are associated with stability or infrequent changes; and (6) While participating in the subsidy program, how long do subsidized arrangements last and how many subsidized arrangements do children have while on subsidy

Administration for Children and Families/OPRE Projects


The Effects of Quality Information and Financial Assistance on Child Care Choices and Employment Outcomes of Low-Income Families in Minnesota
Tout, Kathryn, 2007
Child Trends

This study builds on an existing evaluation of a pilot quality rating system (QRS) by examining how low-income families in Minnesota make child care decisions. It explores how families navigate the complex array of child care settings, financial resources, and information about available child care, and how the implementation of the QRS affects these processes. The project tracks individuals in QRS and non-QRS communities for two years to gather data for descriptive analyses and the testing of econometric models. The following broad groups of research questions are addressed: (1) What factors influence awareness of and use of QRS information in choice of child care setting? What are the characteristics of families using the QRS? How does the QRS affect choice of child care?; (2) Does the QRS affect the use of subsidies? Does the type of setting chosen affect the use of subsidies? Which characteristics of the family are associated with use of CCAP subsidies?; (3) How do subsidies affect choice of child care? Do subsidies change the type of child care chosen? Do subsidies change the quality of child care chosen? Is the use of subsidies associated with more stable child care arrangements over time?; and (4) What factors influence child care stability, reliability, and employment outcomes? Findings are expected to inform the pilot QRS and to provide information to state and federal policymakers about how factors such as the type and quality of care chosen are related to the stability of child care and, in turn, to low-income parents' employment and family outcomes.

Administration for Children and Families/OPRE Projects


Exploring Parent Decision-Making: Subsidies, Employment, and Child Care
Carlin, Caroline, 2009
University of Minnesota

Decisions that parents make with regard to nonparental child care for their children are tied to other household decisions. Intuitively, we would expect the choice of maternal employment and the setting of care for young children during the mother's employment hours to be a simultaneous decision. While we refer to these decisions as "choices", it is important to recognize that these occur with the context of (often severe) resource constraints and limited information, and are influenced by social and group norms and expectations. Not all of these constraints and influences are observable by researchers, making the detangling of these choices challenging in quantitative analysis. This project uses recent, nationally-representative, longitudinal data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study - Birth Cohort (ECLS-B) and innovative statistical methods to examine parents' child care and employment decisions in the context of subsidy receipt. Research questions include: (1) What factors affect parents' decisions about employment, use of non-parental child care and type of child care used?; and (2) what is the role of child care subsidies in these decisions?

Administration for Children and Families/OPRE Projects


Minnesota Child Care Choices: Child care decision-making and perceptions of quality
Forry, Nicole D., June, 2011
Minneapolis, MN: Child Trends.

Findings from a longitudinal study of the child care decision-making processes of low-income families in Minnesota that examine parents' child care decision-making processes, perceptions of quality, and child care arrangements at baseline, based on a survey of 323 low-income parents with at least one child age 6 or under who have applied for child care assistance or welfare and live in one of seven participating counties

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Minnesota Child Care Choices: Continuity of care and participation in the Child Care Assistance Program
Davis, Elizabeth E., March, 2013
(Child Trends Publication No. 2013-12). Washington, DC: Child Trends.

A study of the characteristics, duration of continuous participation, and continuity of child care arrangements of participants in the child care subsidy program in Minnesota, based on child care subsidy voucher administrative data for 44,582 children from January 2009 through June 2010

Reports & Papers


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Minnesota Child Care Choices: Families' awareness and use of a pilot quality rating and improvement system
Isner, Tabitha K., June, 2011
Minneapolis, MN: Child Trends.

Findings from a longitudinal study of the child care decision-making processes of low-income families in Minnesota that examine parents' awareness and use of pilot quality rating and improvement system (QRIS) ratings and rated programs, based on a survey 270 low-income parents with at least one child age 6 or under who have applied for child care assistance or welfare and live in one of four QRIS pilot counties

Fact Sheets & Briefs


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Minnesota Child Care Choices: Families' employment patterns and child care-related work disruptions
Blasberg, Amy, June, 2011
Minneapolis, MN: Child Trends.

Findings from a longitudinal study of the child care decision-making processes of low-income families in Minnesota that examine parents' employment experiences and connections between child care and work, based on analyses of three subsamples from a survey of 323 low-income parents with at least one child age 6 or under who have applied for child care assistance or welfare and live in one of seven participating counties that consisted of 136 parents in paid employment, 282 labor force participants, and 102 parents with child care problems

Fact Sheets & Briefs


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Minnesota Child Care Choices: Families' participation in the Child Care Assistance Program
Davis, Elizabeth E., June, 2011
Minneapolis, MN: Child Trends.

Findings from a longitudinal study of the child care decision-making processes of low-income families in Minnesota that examine parents' child care subsidy program participation, based on administrative data from 323 low-income parents with at least one child age 6 or under who have applied for child care assistance or welfare and live in one of seven participating counties

Fact Sheets & Briefs


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Minnesota Child Care Choices: Study and sample description
Tout, Kathryn, June, 2011
Minneapolis, MN: Child Trends.

An overview of a study, and its sample, that examines the child care decision-making processes of low-income families in Minnesota

Fact Sheets & Briefs


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Research Connections is supported by grant #90YE0104 from the Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation, Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The contents are solely the responsibility of the National Center for Children in Poverty and the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research and do not necessarily represent the official views of the Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation, the Administration for Children and Families, or the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

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