Consortium Advisory
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Research and Evaluation Advisory Committee

The Alabama Child Care Consortium is funded by the Alabama Department of Human Resources.

Family Child Care

Funding and Policies

Health and Safety

Kith and Kin

Information Dissemination

Leadership in Child Care

Parent Education

Training

Incremental Accreditation

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Attending:

Mary Davis - Childcare Resource Network
Rita Brantley - TCRC Child Care Corporation
Sophia Bracy Harris - FOCAL
Teresa Austin - Children's Services Inc.
Kay Tolbert - Children's Services Inc.
Barbara Scott - Childcare Resources
Margie Curry - Childcare Resources
Joyce Upshaw - Child Resource Group Home
Janice Carter - South Central Alabama Child Care Management Agency
Paul Mohr - Alabama Commission on Higher Education
Catherine Kreger - Gulf Regional Childcare Management Agency
Kim Allins - Gulf Regional Childcare Management Agency
Jeanne Sellers - Family Guidance Center
Carol Veatch - Family Guidance Center
Richard Hardison - CCMA of North Central Alabama
Julie Lawrence - Children's Services Inc.
Craig Ramey – UAB Civitan International Research Center
Sharon Ramey – UAB Civitan International Research Center
Janice Cotton – UAB Civitan International Research Center
Amanda Deason – UAB Civitan International Research Center (Montgomery office)
Christopher Robinson – UAB, Graduate student
M. Lee Van Horn – UAB, Graduate student

Overview of meeting:

• There was a discussion of what the research priorities of the Consortium need to be.

• A working conceptual framework of components of child care quality and influences on quality was presented and modified. Sophia Bracy Harris noted a key element left out – namely, displaying the importance of the community contexts where families live and child care is provided. There was strong endorsement for adding this. A discussion of the current research on child care in Alabama and difficulties in conducting new research was discussed.

• Discussion about how to measure child care quality. There was consensus about and clear support for creating a definition of quality that doesn't, by definition, exclude any groups - that isn't demographically or structurally exclusive. High quality care can be achieved regardless of educational or socioeconomic status of care provider.

 Four Components of Quality (for more details, see below):

1. Health and Safety Practices - not just knowledge, but practices.
2. Individual Attention - attention tailored to each child.
3. Opportunities for Learning and Language Development.
4. Communication between Care Provider and Families.

• These aspects of quality were discussed as being the core features that comprise quality care. There are other aspects that support the provision of quality child care. We modified the conceptual framework to include support of child care and the child by the community.

 Discussion of Research Priorities for Consortium:

• New Data Collection

We had a lengthy discussion about different options and also recognize that when data (information) are gathered, we need to have a fairly clear plan of who will be interested in the information and how it might be used. Thus, the Committee re-affirmed many of the same points discussed at the last meeting regarding the importance of having a plan for the timely dissemination of information that comes from research as well as creating a constituency in advance that contributes to and will value the research.

To start with, there was unanimity and high enthusiasm for conducting a survey that would yield information about key issues and concerns, as well as general portrayal of what is happening, from the perspective of:

1. The general public – this would be like an opinion survey done with a representative sample of citizens via a telephone poll concerning their awareness about and opinions regarding key child care, pre-K, and after school education issues.
2. in-depth interviews with key decision makers throughout the state (possibly some written questionnaires could be used, but we recognized that these often are not completed or are filled out by individuals who have uneven knowledge about some of the information sought). It is important that these be systematic and yield information that is useful – as well as provide opportunities for these key decision makers to express their insights and ideas for promising solutions and strategies to improve things.
3. Child care providers, in both regulated and unregulated forms of child care, including those who serve children receiving child care subsidies and those who do not.
4. Parents and legal guardians of children in all forms of child care, including infant-toddler, preschool (3 – 5 year olds), and after school care.

Evaluation of Quality Enhancement Initiatives

The grant submitted to the Administration on Children, Youth, and Families was described. This would bring $700,000 into Alabama to help evaluate three promising Quality Enhancement Initiatives now being launched: the incremental accreditation program that is offering mentoring and assistance to centers seeking to improve their quality and to earn national accreditation; the family child care project that will send mentors into family child care homes on a weekly basis for 3 – 5 hours per week and offer other training supports; and the kith and kin initiative that will be adapting materials from the Bank Street College program and other successful programs to help relative caregivers become more knowledgeable and skilled in the care they provide. Each of these is funded through federal child care quality enhancement funds and will be conducted so that there will be a comparison group of providers who receive opportunities to improve the quality of care through more traditional means, such as attending training sessions, reading written materials, using information and resource libraries, and networking with other providers in their local area. This proposal will be reviewed in May and funding would begin in June. This is likely to be highly competitive nationally – and if this proposal is not successful, then we plan to revise and re-submit to several other agencies to obtain funding.

• Information Dissemination and plans for distribution and use of data study findings were discussed. Compared to other states, Alabama has fewer information systems in place that yield up-to-date and comprehensive information on aspects of the care of young children (birth to five) and after school programs. Ideally, the research conducted under the Consortium endeavor will help create lasting state capacity by having both people and systems in place to maintain highly useful databases for monitoring and fiscal matters, as well as the capacity to launch high quality studies about emerging issues in the field of child care. Meetings with representatives of state and private universities and colleges are scheduled, and many discussions have occurred already, to pursue this goal.

Conceptual Framework of Child Care Quality:

We discussed the proposed definition of quality, which has four components (diamonds) and was endorsed in concept by the Directors of the CCMAs at a meeting in February. Since then, the UAB Coordinating Center for the Consortium has developed this in greater detail. Briefly, these fours key elements are:

These are:

• (1) good health and safety practices – the caregivers should be knowledgeable about and demonstrate on a daily basis that there are active supports to promote the child’s physical growth and well-being, to minimize exposure to health risks (such as spread of viruses and bacterial infections), to protect from injury (such as indoor and outdoor play areas and equipment and toys safe for the child’s age), procedures in place to handle medical emergencies as well as any regular health care for children with special needs, and information about state laws regarding reporting suspected abuse and neglect.
• (2) positive and frequent adult-child interactions – the interactions between young children and their caregivers should be frequent, positive, warm, responsive to children’s needs, and supportive of their development and social-emotional well-being. All of the national accrediting organizations emphasize this element and have excellent descriptions of desirable adult-child exchanges. (According to national reports, this is one of the elements that is most frequently lacking in child care settings that otherwise are in compliance with the other features of child care necessary to achieve national accreditation.)
• (3) many learning and language activities – the caregivers should be knowledgeable about the types of learning and language activities appropriate for the child (or children) in their care and should provide these activities on a daily basis. The learning and language activities should be provided in a natural way that is appropriate to each child’s age and developmental level, and these activities should be varied, interesting, fun, and available throughout the day. These activities collectively are vital to help children become ready for school, and typically these are learned in the context of play and daily social exchanges.
• (4) supportive caregiver-parent relationship(s) – the caregiver should communicate frequently, directly, and effectively with the child’s family members regarding the child’s progress, social and emotional well-being, learning and language development, and any incidents or concerns that may arise. In addition, the caregiver should welcome information about things happening outside the child care setting that may influence the child and be skilled in encouraging parents to provide learning and language activities at home that are supportive of those in the child care setting (and vice versa). Affirmation and positive endorsement of diversity are important, including cultural, ethnic, spiritual, and linguistic diversity, along with valuing children who may have disabilities and special health care needs. Parents should always be welcome in the child care setting at all times with no restrictions.

• To our knowledge, if the Consortium continues to gain strong statewide endorsement from all key stakeholders about the value and practical usefulness of this definition of the quality of child care (along with accompanying methods for how to determine the extent to which these four elements are present), then this would be a very important advance – and would go beyond what has happened elsewhere to our knowledge. Historically, different standards have been in place for different types of care or different funding agencies, but there has been no universal definition that could apply to all forms of child care (and even to a child’s home environment). Further, all of the elements proposed have been supported by strong and multiple research findings. Finally, this definition differs from typical minimum standards or even national accreditation standards in that it does not depend upon structural features or education and training of caregivers per se. Although there is clear value in promoting lower adult to child ratios and in encouraging more caregivers to obtain good education and training experiences, in and of themselves these do not guarantee high quality care. Similarly, it is recognized that some caregivers have become highly skilled and well informed through other means and do, in fact, provide high quality care without formal educational credentials and sometimes in spite of the challenges of caring for many children. This Consortium definition is thus viewed as one that has the potential to create greater harmony within the broad child caregiving community.


The conceptual framework emphasizes the multiple levels of influence and the importance of working to be certain that the supportive contexts are present to maximize children receiving high quality care in all the places where they spend time and learn.

• Priorities for obtaining a baseline or descriptive information about child care in Alabama were identified – recognizing that there has never been a statewide study or evaluation that yields a truly representative picture of what is happening to young children in terms of the quality of care they are receiving.

• There has never been a comprehensive study of the quality of all forms of care in Alabama.

• Conducting such a study is critical in guiding the efforts of the Consortium and in allowing us to evaluate the effectiveness of the Consortium.

• In conducting this research we must be prepared for negative findings about the quality of care in Alabama and be able to provide solutions to the problem. 'Don't be prepared to make apologies, be prepared to do something about the problem.'

• We need systematic change. Something that has roots and builds on them.

• Every feature of quality must be measurable in all possible forms of child care.

• We talked about the advantages of using existing measures to the extent that they allow for the assessment of child care quality.

• The need to have a representative sampling of different types of child care settings - family home, center-based, relative care, etc.

• Child care quality to be measured by trained observer ratings, interviews of caregivers and directors, and surveys of families.

• Observational measures may include:

Items from ECERS and ITERS (there is home-based care version of these instruments).

Score interactions between children and caregivers using Arnett Scale of Caregiver Interactions.

• Interviews may also be conducted with parents; direct care providers and administrators connected with the sample of child care settings.

• Methodological issues discussed include:

1. Framing questions so participants do not give us only answers that they think are socially acceptable or what we want to hear.
2. The need to come up with ways to encourage providers to participate, particularly exempt providers.

• The research effort will be facilitated if participants have initial buy-in to the process and there is a commitment to actually use the information in some way so that they can see its value.

• A guiding principal of the research effort will be not to gather information for which there is not a specific use.

Collecting New Data

• Phases of these efforts need to be timed so as to keep the issues in public eye.

• Agreement was reached on the value of conducting a poll on what the general public thinks about child care issues

What are the most important aspects?
Design the poll/survey so that it can be administered every other year.
Care must be taken not to slant questions.

• Approach Governor Siegelman with a proposal for a census on the well-being of young children including a child care component.

• The goal of research on quality and poll/census is not to conduct research for the sake of learning, but so that the information can be used to change things.

• Concern is raised that with the implementation of welfare reform - many children are in and out of child care situations because their family's employment situations are not stable and go in and out of the system. Children in these situations never have the chance to bond with a caregiver. These situations need to be followed so that we can give reports as to what is happening to people who need it to effect policy.