Listed Home-Based Child Care Providers and Child Care and Early Education Policies Series: Quality Rating and Improvement Systems

Listed Home-Based Child Care Providers and Child Care and Early Education Policies Series: Quality Rating and Improvement Systems

Published: Aug 26, 2024
Publisher: Washington, DC: Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation, Administration for Children and Families, US. Department of Health and Human Services

Clients

OPRE Logo

Authors

Natalie Reid

Ann Li

Patricia Del Grosso

Sally Atkins-Burnett

Juliet Bromer

Key Findings

  • Among listed HBCC providers in states in the analysis, about two in five reported participating in QRIS, on average, though this percentage was higher in states that required some or all providers to participate. 
  • A greater percentage of listed HBCC providers reported QRIS participation in states that offered QRIS-related coaching, mentoring, and professional development and progressively incremental tiered subsidy reimbursement policies. 
  • Many listed HBCC providers who participated in QRIS also reported participating in other publicly funded CCEE policies and were accredited or certified.
  • About one in three listed HBCC providers reported that they improved their quality rating in the prior two years. This percentage was higher in states that offered alternative pathways to obtain QRIS ratings and in states that did not offer progressively incremental tiered subsidy reimbursement.
  • Listed HBCC providers’ reports of recent engagement in professional development activities – such as coaching, home visiting, and CCEE coursework – and greater knowledge of effective teacher-child interactions were positively associated with reports of increased QRIS ratings.

In 2019, approximately 91,000 child care and early education (CCEE) providers cared for one or more young children in a home-based child care (HBCC) setting and were “listed” by state or local CCEE agencies. Listed HBCC providers experience three predominant CCEE policies:

  1. The Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) provides funding to states, in part, to subsidize CCEE costs for families with low incomes. 
  2. State-administered regulations set and enforce minimum requirements related to health and safety in all CCEE settings. 
  3. Quality rating and improvement systems (QRISs) assess the quality of and support quality improvement in CCEE settings.

This brief, focusing on state QRISs, is part of a series of three policy research briefs and accompanying technical report presenting findings from the first nationally representative analysis of listed HBCC providers’ reported interactions with these CCEE policies, as represented in the 2019 National Survey of Early Care and Education (NSECE) Home-Based Provider Survey. This brief also includes data on state QRIS policies for HBCC providers from the Quality Compendium Database.

The technical report for this series provides additional details about data sources and methods, full results tables for the main analyses, and supplementary analyses that support the main results.

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