Promising Practices for High-Quality Home-Based Child Care Networks: Focus Group Briefs

A child playing with colorful plastic building blocks, holding up a yellow piece.

Drawing from multiple focus groups conducted with network leaders and providers, this series of briefs examines the underlying values and goals of home-based child care networks, network services offered to providers, and network implementation practices that research suggests most likely contribute to positive outcomes for providers, children, and families.

Guiding this series is the Strengthening Home-based Child Care Networks brief which describes a set of 11 evidence-based benchmarks and indicators for high- quality networks grouped into three broad categories: “Why” benchmarks unpack fundamental values and goals of a network; “What” benchmarks articulate network services that meet goals for providers, children, and families; “How” benchmarks reflect evidence-based implementation strategies used by networks.

Supporting Providers as Equal Partners also available in Spanish and Chinese:

Supporting Providers’ Economic Well- Being and Sustainability

Network Practices Around Equity and Social Justice also available in Spanish:

Women’s contributions and experiences are not well represented in the record books, but it is just as rich and worth celebrating. Ours is a tale of community, resilience, and connection to one another, and it is inextricably linked with care work. 
During Women’s History Month, we celebrate the contributions that women have made to every corner of our society and honor their achievements. Among these leaders are the more than 5 million women who form the backbone of home-based child care (HBCC).
For generations, Black home-based child care providers have built systems of care rooted in community, trust, and resilience, often stepping in where formal systems fell short. Of the over 5 million home-based child care providers, including Family Child Care providers and paid and unpaid Family Friend and Neighbor caregivers, roughly a quarter in each subgroup identify as Black Non-Hispanic