CDSS-PACE Child Care Planning Project

As part of the CDSS-PACE Child Care Planning Project, PACE set out to learn how California’s childcare subsidy system and the CalWORKs program affects licensed and license-exempt childcare providers. PACE also wanted to understand the day-to-day issues facing providers as well as their opinions about the system within which they work. This report represents the findings from this study, and hopefully offers some insight into the lives and experiences of these crucial persons who care for the state’s young children.

During the spring and summer of 1999, and again during summer 2000, PACE conducted five focus groups with childcare providers. Four were with licensed providers, and one was with license-exempt providers, all of whom either were participating in a program to get licensed or worked for that program. One focus group with licensed providers who speak English was conducted in Los Angeles County, and another was held in Alameda County. The other three focus groups were run in Kern County. One was with English-speaking, license-exempt providers, another with English-speaking licensed providers, and the final was with Spanish-speaking licensed providers.

The timing of the focus groups is important: Counties were still in the process of ramping up their CalWORKs programs in 1999, and changes were still being made to the childcare subsidy structures in 2000. For example, Los Angeles County began contracting with alternative payment programs (APPs) for Stage 1 childcare in 2000. In addition, it is important to note that the childcare subsidy structures across the three counties are different. In Kern County, one agency handles all three stages of CalWORKs as well as Alternative Payment Program (non-CalWORKs) funding. In Los Angeles County, at the time these focus groups were conducted, ten agencies handled Stage 2 and 3 subsidies and APP (non-CalWORKs) funding streams, and were taking over Stage 1 care from the county social services department. In Alameda County, two agencies administered Stage 1 funds, and seven administered Stage 2 and 3 funding as well as the APP (non-CalWORKs) subsidies.

All of the focus group participants were asked a series of semi-structured, open-ended questions on a wide range of topics. The sessions were tape recorded, transcribed, and then coded and analyzed for recurrent topics and themes. To maintain the confidentiality of the data, the researchers neither know who the participants are in these groups, nor which participants made which comments. Thus the paper cannot make definitive statements about the number of participants stating any one opinion, although it does try to reflect when a majority of the providers share experiences or attitudes. None of their responses were corrected. As this is a qualitative study with a small number of participants, PACE also is not claiming that this work is representative of the childcare industry in California, or even within each of the counties in which it worked. Rather this paper simply provides some insight into the experiences, thoughts, and beliefs of several groups of childcare providers across a broad geographic swath of California.

This report is organized according to thematic topics. The topics reported both follow the questions that were asked of providers and reflect the subjects that generated the most discussion in the focus groups. The first section is a general overview of the kinds of services provided by the participants in these focus groups, including whether or not they provide transportation, care to sick children, and so forth. It is followed by a description of providers’ philosophies of care, and then a description of the operational issues they face. Finally, the paper presents the providers’ descriptions of and their opinions about and interactions with the CalWORKs childcare subsidy system.