Profiles of Unlisted Home-Based Child Care Providers

• In Event: 1-215 - No One Right Way: Understanding Heterogeneity among Providers and Quality Improvement in Home-Based Child Care

Integrative Statement

Approximately seven million young children spend time in non-parental home-based child care (HBCC; NSECE Project Team, 2015). However, little is known about HBCC providers and children’s experiences in these settings. This is especially true for unlisted HBCC providers, those who do not appear on any state or national list and therefore are often unknown. Gaining a better understanding of unlisted HBCC providers is one important step in supporting positive outcomes for the many children attending HBCC.

This study identifies profiles of unlisted paid HBCC providers based on their caregiving beliefs, instructional practices, professional development (PD), and family supports. The results of this study can inform quality improvement efforts and targeted support to unlisted HBCC providers that can assist them in supporting children’s development. The study explores these research questions: 1) How do unlisted paid HBCC providers group into profiles based on their beliefs and practices? and 2) What demographic characteristics predict profile membership?

Data for this study come from the National Survey of Early Care and Education (NSECE; NSECE Project Team, 2013), which provides the first nationally representative sample of HBCC providers. This project analyzes a sample of unlisted paid HBCC providers, those who do not appear on a list but who receive payment for at least one child. Providers were identified through screening the sample of households included in the NSECE. Respondents were asked if they or someone in their house regularly provided non-custodial child care to any child. The unweighted sample includes 448 providers, which weighted represents a population of 919,257.

Nine variables were used to identify profiles of providers using latent profile analysis (LPA) in MPlus. Demographic characteristics were considered as predictors of profile membership. These covariates were examined using multinomial logistic regression (MLR) through the R3STEP method. Missing data was handled through a hybrid approach of full information maximum likelihood and multiple imputation.

An LPA using sample weights was run with two through five classes to determine the best model fit. A four-profile solution was selected according to fit indices and interpretability. Results suggest that unlisted paid providers align into three profiles: Low Instruction, Low PD (51.3%, n=230); Higher Instruction (35.2%, n=158); and Engaged with Outside Systems (13.4%, n=60). Table 1 shows the descriptive statistics for each profile on the variables used to determine profile membership. Variables related to planning and implementing learning activities, participating in PD, and referring families to outside services varied among profiles.

Results of the MLR are displayed in Table 2. Higher Instruction providers were likely to be older and enroll more children and were less likely to care for only related children and live in an urban dense area than Low Instruction, Low PD providers. The only significant demographic difference between Engaged with Outside Systems providers and Low Instruction, Low PD providers is that the Engaged with Outside Systems providers enrolled more children. Together, these results highlight the heterogeneity of unlisted paid HBCC providers and the need for more research to understand how to support these providers to improve children’s development.

Authors

• Alison Hooper, University of Alabama
  Presenting Author

• Gerilyn Slicker, University of Delaware
  Non-Presenting Author

• Rena Hallam, University of Delaware
  Non-Presenting Author

• Danielle Riser, University of Delaware
  Non-Presenting Author