In September 2023, the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, Administration for Children & Families, Office of Planning, Research & Evaluation (OPRE) awarded a grant to a Connecticut-based team to evaluate the impact of Connecticut's Child Care Development Fund (CCDF) program’s subsidy payment policies on provider and family participation. The Connecticut team is part of a cohort of nine evaluation teams funded by the OPRE’s Coordinated Evaluations of CCDF Policies and Initiatives project. OPRE’s goal for this cohort is to learn which subsidy payment policies increase child care and early education access for families with low incomes. To promote meaningful and actionable research, each team includes researchers working in collaboration with state-level policymakers. The Connecticut team is led by three members of the PEER management team, EDC’s Heidi Rosenberg (PI) and Yale’s Michael Strambler (co-PI), along with Joanna Meyer (co-I), in collaboration with policymaker partners from Connecticut Office of Early Childhood (OEC).
Connecticut’s CCDF program is called Care4Kids, and it provides child care subsidies for approximately 21,000 children each year. The Connecticut team is conducting an implementation evaluation and an impact evaluation. In the first year of the project (October 2023 to September 2024), the research team focused on learning from state agency partners about the details of Care4Kids policies for subsidy payments and how these policies are implemented in practice. The research team and OEC partners also considered what administrative data the evaluation could use to examine the impact of policy changes on the number of participating early care and education (ECE) providers and the number of participating families.
The second year of the project (October 2024 to September 2025) focused on understanding the perspectives of child care and early education providers. The research team worked with OEC partners and expert advisors to develop a survey about providers’ experiences with and perceptions of the Connecticut CCDF program’s subsidy policies and practices. With the help of Connecticut’s child care resource and referral organization (211 Child Care, operated by United Way of Connecticut), Connecticut Early Childhood Alliance, Child Care for Connecticut’s Future, and several other organizations, the project team invited all licensed Connecticut child care and early education providers (both center-based and home-based providers) to participate in the survey, whether or not they were part of Care4Kids. Over 400 providers completed the online survey, which took place in the spring and was available in English, Spanish, Portuguese, and Haitian Creole.
After the survey closed, the project team developed a protocol for one-on-one interviews that would allow for deeper exploration of key topics. Similar to the survey, all licensed child care and early education providers were informed of the interviews and invited to express their interest in participating. From that pool, the research team selected about 40 providers who represented each of Connecticut’s five CCDF regions, center-based and home-based providers, and CCDF and non-CCDF providers. Interviews took place virtually over the summer and were conducted in English and Spanish.
This fall, the project team released a report and fact sheet that present initial findings from the provider survey; these publications are available on the project page. A second report will explain additional analyses examining how provider perceptions and experiences vary by provider type, region, and other factors. In addition, the project team is in the process of finalizing a report that describes findings from qualitative analysis of interview transcripts.
Meanwhile, the team has shared findings with OEC partners and with child care and early education providers through presentations and conversations. OEC is in the process of revising the state’s CCDF program policies and producing a policy manual for providers and families, and the findings from the provider survey and provider interviews can help inform this process. For example, the survey revealed that while Care4Kids rates are made up of two elements (state subsidy payments and family fees), many providers do not receive the family fees, which means they are receiving less than the rate established by Care4Kids. Many of these providers say their families simply cannot afford to pay the family fee. At the same time, some providers who serve a large proportion of families in the subsidy program reported that subsidy payments from the state are more reliable than tuition payments from private-pay families, who sometimes struggle to pay the full cost of tuition. In the coming months, the research team will use administrative data to examine participation rates and conduct a survey and focus groups to learn about the perspectives of families who need child care. The research team is committed to producing findings that can inform state policymakers as they administer Connecticut’s CCDF program.