Secondary Analyses of Data on Child Care

Since 2000, Congress has appropriated about $10 million per year of Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) discretionary funds to be used for child care research and evaluation. These funds have supported projects that add to our knowledge about the efficacy of child care subsidy policies and programs toward achieving the two targeted long-term outcomes of the CCDF: (1) improved employment and self-sufficiency outcomes for parents; and (2) increased availability of high quality care for low-income working families. In Fiscal Year 2009, funds were made available to support secondary analyses of existing data to answer questions of relevance for policy decision-making on child care and child care subsidies in the United States, US Territories and Tribes.

The specific goals of the Secondary Analyses of Data on Child Care Grants are:

• To address issues of current relevance to decision makers at the local, State, and national levels. Topics of particular interest for the Secondary Analyses of Data on Child Care grants are: (1) measurement of quality; (2) subsidy policies and parental work outcomes; (3) subsidy policies and the child care workforce; (4) child, family, employment, and program / provider characteristics and choice of care; (5) child care characteristics and child and family outcomes; (6) transition to kindergarten; (7) implementation assessment (or process evaluation) of programs/initiatives; (8) effectiveness of state systems in monitoring and maintaining standards of care; (9) cost-benefit / cost-effectiveness analyses of child care initiatives; and (10) collaboration, coordination, and alignment of services among early care and education programs.
• To encourage active communication, networking, and collaboration among prominent child care researchers and policymakers. To facilitate networking with policymakers and researchers, grantees are required to participate in annual meetings of the Child Care Policy Research Consortium and may be invited to attend the State and Territory Child Care Administrators Meetings. Grantees are also required to participate in a meeting of all Secondary Analyses of Data on Child Care grantees, which is meant to stimulate potentially useful and constructive feedback from other Secondary Analyses of Data on Child Care grantees, as well as to facilitate collaboration and networking activities.
• To increase the capacity of child care researchers to analyze existing data. To increase this capacity over time, each grantee is expected to produce a paper and/or brief regarding methodological issues encountered while conducting their analyses.
• To increase the dissemination capacity for child care research at the national, State, and local levels. The studies funded through this announcement, including the implications of results for decision makers at the local, State, and national levels, will be made widely accessible.

The points of contact are T’Pring Westbrook and Kathleen Dwyer.