Publications and Pages

Home Grown convened a diverse group of home-based child care providers to inform recommendations to the White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health.

This research brief presents findings from the Erikson Institute's targeted literature review on home-based child care (HBCC) networks.

This brief describes 11 quality benchmarks for home-based child care networks, presenting a picture of of what a high-quality network strategy can look like.

FFN care is the most widely used form of care in America. Learn more about FFN care, the families who use it, and recommendations for supporting FFN care.

This publication highlights how home-based child care supports children through each developmental stage while being an essential support for working families.

intended to help evaluate Home-based Child Care (HBCC) networks. It includes tools that can be used to collect data to assess an initiative’s progress toward meeting its goals.

This report examines the policies and provision of state-funded pre-K in FCCs in these 24 states and in four large cities and follows with a discussion of the potential opportunities and challenges derived from an analysis of current state policies.

The COVID-19 pandemic illuminated the need for child care as infrastructure. As families juggled work, job loss, and distance learning, all while taking care of children, we’ve seen something grow in America: the reliance on, respect for, and recognition of home-based child care (HBCC). Yet HBCC remains woefully under-resourced.

View Home Grown's supplement on Child Care Development Fund (CCDF) Recommendations, designed to help state leadership leverage CCDF in the short-term for home-based child care providers.

Half of all families whose children who are in non-parental care choose and use family, friend and neighbor (FFN) child care, and yet this is the least supported aspect of the child care and early learning sector. Read Home Grown's recommendations for supporting and strengthening FFN care, providing critical support for children, families and caregivers.

Home Grown is sharing state recommendations for scaling effective stabilization funds for home-based child care providers. The recommendations are based on the final data from the Home-Based Child Care Emergency Fund created in April 2020.

In April 2020, Home Grown and its members created the Home-Based Child Care (HBCC) Emergency Fund) with $1.2 million in funding to catalyze the development of regional funds that provide direct financial support to home-based child care (HBCC) providers, including both regulated family child care (FCC) providers and family, friend, and neighbor (FFN) caregivers across the nation. This report contains the final data of the findings.

The past year, 2020, was like no other we’ve experienced in our life time. We have endured a global pandemic that not only impacted or threatened our health, but also our livelihoods. Home-based child care providers have felt the impact of the pandemic harder than most industries.

This resource offers ideas and suggestions for states to consider as they prioritize stabilizing the supply of HBCC. This complements the Stabilization Fund Strategies resource.

Home Grown is pleased to share our recommendations on how to allocate recently released federal funds to support the needs of home-based child care providers and the families they serve.

Home Grown commends President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris and their team for setting out an ambitious vision for expanding access to high quality child care and early learning.

View Home Grown's State Leadership and Administrator’s Guide, created to facilitate and promote prioritization of supports for home-based child care providers.

This report provides an overview of policies across all 50 states plus the District of Columbia related to home-based child care (HBCC). The document includes an overview of policies related to state definitions and regulations, licensing and subsidy, external systems and funding.

View our Fact Sheet for an introduction to who qualifies as a home-based child care provider in the US, the challenges providers face in light of COVID-19, and for our recommendations for how to support providers.

This document reports on the work of Home Grown and Civitas Strategies in supporting home-based child care providers to access the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP).

This fall, many grade schools across the country will be offering partial or entirely online learning thus creating a need for child care for working parents whose children are learning remotely. Remote schooling for school-age children will create new demand for child care and various challenges for providers and families.

COVID-19 has made the need for comprehensive services - long offered through the Head Start and Early Head Start service models - more pressing. Now is the time to use the HBCC structure to scale the effective, two- generational approach embodied in comprehensive service delivery. Read our paper for recommendations.

The federal Early Head Start-Child Care Partnership Grants funding opportunity encouraged the participation of family child care providers. Home Grown partnered with the Ounce of Prevention and Early Education Achievement Consultants to provide application support, including this library of resources.

Any effort to ensure equitable access to child care will substantially include home-based child care providers, both licensed and unlicensed. That’s why federal investments in child care must prioritize increasing the quality of and access to home-based child care.

Home-based caregivers are well-positioned to provide quality child care, but lack adequate compensation, health insurance, and many professional supports. Home-based child care networks are crucial tools to connect providers with these resources.

Find resources on the federal Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) for home-based child care providers, including guidance on applying for forgiveness. Home Grown partnered with Civitas Strategies on webinars, FAQs, and handbooks to support home-based child care providers. Resources available in English and Spanish.