An ongoing research-policy partnership is working to connect children with high-quality early care and education.
For many young children in foster care in Arkansas, access to high-quality early care and education (ECE) remains out of reach. A collaborative project is working to change that.
Since 2022, SRI has partnered with the Arkansas Office of Early Childhood (OEC), the Arkansas Division of Children & Family Services (DCFS), the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS), and the National Center for Children in Poverty on a Child Care Policy Research Partnership (CCPRP) grant to improve access to high-quality early care and education (ECE) for young children in foster care.
“UAMS, OEC, and others have long prioritized efforts to ensure high-quality child care for children in foster care, but getting additional traction on this difficult issue requires additional focus, resources, and creativity,” says Nikki Edge, professor in the UAMS Department of Family and Preventive Medicine and senior advisor on the grant.
CCPRP grants bring in important partnerships, financial and staffing resources, and research expertise into states to help get movement on issues of importance to state leaders. Through this particular grant project, the team has revealed critical gaps and promising solutions.
Many foster families need child care because the caregivers are employed outside of the home. When surveyed, more than a third of caregivers said they had declined to take in a child through the foster care system because they were concerned about finding an ECE program. About half of foster parents reported challenges in finding a child care program that had immediate openings and accepted child care subsidy vouchers. Most parents reported searching for child care on their own, with little guidance. While resources like Child Care Aware are available to help families find ECE programs, few parents were aware of them.
Increasing participation in state support programs
Faith-based ECE programs play a key role in serving children in foster care. When surveyed, nearly half of faith-based programs had enrolled a child in foster care in the past year. Many of these faith-based programs reported they were serving children in foster care without accessing key federal and state financial and professional development supports like training on how to support children who have experienced trauma or who have challenging behaviors.
Faith-based program directors also reported believing that they were ineligible to participate in the state quality and subsidy systems because of their program’s faith mission. However, state partners have clarified that faith-based programs are eligible to participate while still including faith-based practices in their program, highlighting a need for better outreach and support.
“We’re not just studying the problem,” says Todd Grindal, co-director of SRI’s Center for Learning and Development. “We’re working side-by-side with leaders in state agencies, childcare programs, and the faith community to turn what we learn into practical solutions that help more kids in foster care get into the high-quality early learning programs they need.”
In response to study findings, the project team collaborated with state agencies and local partners to raise awareness and use of Child Care Aware services to help foster parents and caseworkers quickly find child care that meets families’ needs.
So far, the project team has communicated information about Child Care Aware to more than 400 Arkansas Division of Children and Family Services staff through trainings and other methods. Further, the team coordinated with four local organizations that support foster parents to share a one-page overview of Child Care Aware services and contact information through social media.
The team is also actively collaborating with the faith-based community to develop approaches for increasing the number of faith-based ECE programs that serve children in foster care through child care subsidy vouchers.
For example, many faith-based program directors said they would be more open to participating in the state quality and subsidy systems if they could hear directly from faith-based peers already participating. In response, the team is planning to gather testimonials from faith-based providers who participate in the state systems and serve children in foster care in a way that is aligned with their faith missions.
Connecting kids to valuable early learning
This policy-research partnership is shining a light on the challenges that foster families face and uncovering new opportunities to help them access high-quality ECE. By listening to parents, ECE providers, and community organizations, the team is identifying ways to better connect children in foster care with the early learning experiences they need.
“Children in foster care face unique challenges due to trauma and separation from primary caregivers,” notes Kirby Chow, SRI’s project co-lead alongside Grindal.
“But we know that high-quality ECE programs can provide supportive environments and relationships that can help reduce risks associated with early adversity. Our goal is to make it easier for foster parents to enroll children in foster care in high-quality programs both by providing additional support during their search process and increasing the number of providers who are prepared to serve this group of children.”
To learn more about the “Improving Participation of Children in Foster Care in Stable, High-Quality Early Care and Education” project and explore related publications, visit the project page.
