Page 10 - Strengthening California’s Emergency Child Care Bridge Program

Strengthening California’s Emergency Child Care Bridge
Child Care Provider Demographics
Across both study years, the research team collected 607 online surveys and 57 KIIs with
child care providers who participated in the Bridge Program and/or Trauma-Informed Care training and coaching In Year 1 of the study, only child care providers who served children in the Bridge Program were invited to participate in the study In Year 2, providers who served Bridge children and/or participated in TIC training or coaching were invited to participate in the study This change to include non-Bridge providers who participated in TIC training and coaching was made to gain more insights on the TIC training and coaching aspect of the program Online surveys were collected from 11 of the 12 sample counties The one county who was not represented in the survey had served fewer than 10 families, and none of those child care providers responded to the invitations to participate in the survey Appendix D details the number of online surveys received by county Additionally, surveys were available in
both English and Spanish However, only 10% of surveys across both years of the study were completed in Spanish, thus no language comparison was conducted for this study
Of those providers that responded to the online survey, 66% were from a licensed family child care home, 32% were from a licensed child care center, and 2% were from family, friend, or neighbor care The majority of providers that responded to the survey were female (96%), and 78% of respondents cared for children other than their own for 10 years or more
Findings: Child, Family and Community Well-Being
Bridge Program Increased the Likelihood that Some Caregivers Will
Accept a Child
One of the main goals of the Bridge Program is to increase the number of children in foster care that are successfully placed in stable caregiver settings Based on the data collected over the two years of this study, CCRC can confidently state that the Bridge Program has increased the number of successful foster placements 35% of caregivers surveyed in the first year of the study and more than 40% in year two would not or were not sure they would have accepted the child if they were not enrolled in the Bridge Program
40% of caregivers would not have accepted the foster child without the Bridge Program
Caregiver interview data from the second year of the study also reflected that 41% would not have or were not sure they would have accepted the child(ren) without access to the Bridge Program Relative caregivers more often said they would have accepted the child without the Bridge Program because they were family and would find a way to “make it work” Of those caregivers who were unsure, some qualified their responses in terms of the child’s age Specifically, some caregivers said they would not have accepted non-school aged (under 5 years old) children due to lack of access to child care This finding demonstrates the importance of access to child care regarding caregivers accepting children under 5 years old
“
I would have [still accepted the child], but I don’t know how I would have done it. Because they were family.
– Riverside Caregiver
It would have been hard. I would have had to turn down any child that wasn’t old enough to go to school.
– San Diego Caregiver
We would not have been able to take four kids or an infant because we both work.
– San Benito Caregiver
“
10 | 2022