Page 19 - Strengthening California’s Emergency Child Care Bridge Program

APPENDIX A: STUDY METHODS
Strengthening California’s Emergency Child Care Bridge
All research activities for this project were reviewed and approved by an Institutional Review Board, Advarra, prior to the recruitment of participants and the collection of data The
Research team collected data from a sample of 12 counties across California Counties were recommended by the CDSS (with input from CCRC), which administers the Bridge Program Counties were selected to include early implementers (those that began implementing
January 2018 - April 2018), mid-range implementers (began implementing May 2018 - October 2018), and later-implementers (began implementing November 2018 and later) One of the
late implementing counties was unable to implement the Bridge Program until Year 2 of the evaluation due to delays caused by the COVID-19 pandemic Both the Child Welfare agency and Resource & Referral/Alternative Payment agency for each selected county were required to agree to participate in the study to be included
An Advisory Committee was formed to review and provide input on methods, data collection tools and protocols and findings Members of the Advisory Committee include funders, staf and leaders from CDSS and CDE, statewide advocacy agencies in ECE and Child Welfare, a researcher, a foster parent and child care provider All tools are reviewed by this group prior to translation (and back-translation) into Spanish and approval by IRB
Data Collection Methods: Administrative and Program Staf
Based on the Research Questions in the scopes of work approved by First 5 California, Frist 5 San Bernardino, and Heising-Simons, the CCRC Research team conducted key informant interviews (KIIs) with Child Welfare and ECE Bridge Program administrators, child care navigators, and trauma-informed trainers/coaches who had daily contact with caregivers and child care providers receiving services through the Bridge Program
After IRB approval of survey and interview tools and protocols for all participants, the Research team contacted Bridge Program administrators and staf to schedule interviews Information detailing the study and interview questions were sent to participants so that they were able to prepare in advance for the interview If participants were unable to attend the interview, they were given the option to submit written responses to each question Interviews were conducted using the Zoom conferencing software and, with participants’ permission, the interviews
were audio recorded One Research team member conducted the interview while another
team member audio recorded and took notes Interviews lasted approximately one hour each, depending upon the length of responses from participants Audio recordings were transcribed with support from Otterai software, and then reviewed by a Research team member to facilitate data analysis Data collection methods were the same across all key informant interviews conducted Lastly, participants were ofered a token of appreciation (eg, gift card) for their participation in the interview
Data Collection Methods: Caregivers and Child Care Providers
Based on the Research Questions in the scopes of work approved by First 5 California, First 5 San Bernardino, and Heising-Simons, the Research team conducted key informant interviews with caregivers and child care providers who currently or formerly participated in the Bridge Program (a goal of three caregivers and three child care providers from each of the 12 counties) Caregivers were recruited through the Resource and Referral (R&R) agency in the 12 counties The Research team developed an online survey for the R&R agencies to distribute to caregivers in the Bridge Program The survey included recruitment language for the caregivers to elect to be contacted for a phone interview
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