The Crazy Quilt of Child Care: Understanding

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The Crazy Quilt of Child CareUnderstanding
Connecting to the Spectrum of Early Care
Education Settings

• Dr. Kathy L. Reschke
• Early Development and Learning Consultant
• ICF International

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Overview

• Introductions
• Session goals
• Where children 0-5 are
• How child care settings differ
• Impact on your work

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Session Goals

• Gain an overall view of where young children
  birth to 5 are spending their time.
• Gain an understanding of the dimensions on which
  three common but unique child care settings
  differ.
• Identify opportunities and challenges that those
  differences might present in your work in
  identifying and serving young children with
  special needs in those settings.
• Identify promising strategies tailored to each
  type of setting.

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Where the Kids Are

• All children birth thru 4
• 63 in at least one regular child care
  arrangement
• Estimated 11.6 million children
• 37 not in a regular arrangement
• Mother not employed/in school
• Arrangement is not regular
• 2002 Survey of Income and Program Participation

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Types of Arrangements
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Relative Care
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Non-Relative Care
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Location of Center-based Care
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Factors that Correlate with Child Care Setting

• Childs Age

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Income Level

• As income level increases (lt 25K - 100K
• the percentage of children in any care increases
  (51 - 79)
• the percentage of children in relative care
  decreases (43 - 26)
• the percentage of children in center-based care
  increases (57 - 70)

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Most Frequent Child Care Settings for All
Children, Birth to 4

• 23 Grandparents (i.e. maternal
  grandmother)
• 14 Father
• 13 Child Care Center
• 10 Regulated and unregulated Family
  Child Care

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Dimensions of Child Care

• What does it matter?
• Ecological Systems Model
• To gain entrée into the childs microsystem and
  work effectively within it, you must understand
  the other microsystem influences.
• The caregiver, the setting, exosystem connections

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Our Approach

• Two questions
• How do these characteristics relate to initiating
  with these caregivers?
• How do these characteristics relate to providing
  services and/or support to children, families and
  the caregivers?
• Three unique settings
• Family Child Care, grandmothers, faith-based
  centers/preschools

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Family Child Care

• Caregivers who are unrelated to child who provide
  care in their homes
• Very diverse in many ways
• FCC has been included in the military child care
  system, Early Head Start, and state-funded pre-K
  initiatives
• Preferred choice by many parents of infants
  homelike atmosphere and one primary caregiver

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Grandmother Caregivers

• Strong mesosystem influence relationship
  between parent and caregiver is paramount,
  complex and multi-dimensional
• More appropriate to take a family support
  approach than an ECE approach

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Faith-based Programs

• 25 of all child care is housed in a religious
  facility
• 24 of congregations (across religions) provide
  child care or preschool services
• Variety of relationships between program and
  congregation
• From rental agreement to integral part of
  congregations mission
• In rural areas, may be only group care available

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Faith-based Programs

• Trend 1 Number of programs is increasing at a
  faster pace than the field as a whole
• Trend 2 larger, mainstream denominations/congreg
  ations adding ECE to overall mission
• Trend 3 spiritual formation is becoming an
  increasingly important and valued goal of ECE
  programs

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Faith-based Programs

• Continuum of philosophy, view of themselves and
  world
• Liberal
  Conservative
• ecumenical
  distinctive
• connected
  insulated

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Group Discussions

• Most challenging barrier
• Greatest asset to build on
• Most promising strategy for makinginitial
  connections
• Most promising strategy for developing optimal
  relationships