Reaching Out to Kith and Kin Caregivers in Early Head Start

Although young children's care before they enter school influences school readiness in important ways, the quality of care provided in different settings can vary widely. Low-income families tend to rely heavily on care provided by family, friends, and neighbors—"kith and kin" caregivers especially for their infants and toddlers.

In 2004, the Head Start Bureau funded 23 Early Head Start programs to participate in the Enhanced Home Visiting Pilot Project, an initiative to develop and implement strategies for improving the quality of infant-toddler child care provided by kith and kin caregivers of Early Head Start children. Mathematica with its subcontractor, the Urban Institute, is conducting an evaluation of the pilot project. Designed to be descriptive, the evaluation focuses on learning about program operations and service delivery strategies, rather than assessing the pilot's effects on child care quality and children's outcomes. The evaluation is:

• Learning about the characteristics and needs of kith and kin caregivers and the families that rely on them for child care
• Identifying promising program models for reaching out to caregivers and supporting them in providing good-quality infant-toddler care
• Identifying implementation strategies and challenges
• Documenting the quality of care provided by caregivers participating in the pilot project
• Identifying and disseminating lessons learned

The evaluation collects and analyzes information from three main sources: (1) interviews and focus groups conducted during two rounds of site visits to pilot sites (summer 2005 and spring 2006), (2) a management information system designed for use by the pilot sites, and (3) observational assessments of the quality of the caregiving environments and child-caregiver interactions.

An issue brief, based on the first report from the evaluation, describes the pilot sites' early implementation experiences as well as characteristics of enrolled children, families, and caregivers. The study is funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Office of Head Start.

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