Page 3 - Strengthening California’s Emergency Child Care Bridge Program

Strengthening California’s Emergency Child Care Bridge
Executive Summary
In an efort to assist caregivers willing to take in children who have been removed from their homes, the Emergency Child Care Bridge Program for Foster Children (Bridge Program) was enacted by Senate Bill 89 (SB89) in 2017 to provide emergency child care vouchers The Bridge Program, managed by the California Department of Social Services (CDSS), seeks to connect the child welfare agency and early childhood education (ECE) systems in counties across the state by providing emergency child care vouchers, child care navigators, and trauma-informed care (TIC) training and coaching to increase the number of foster children successfully
placed in stable caregiver settings Navigating both child welfare and ECE systems can be overwhelming and can cause confusion and frustration especially when a caregiver is asked
to assume care for a child unexpectedly The Bridge Program was designed to mitigate these challenges for caregivers However, the program is the only one of its kind, and thus there were no existing frameworks to guide the development and implementation of the new, and much needed program The Child Care Resource Center (CCRC) Research team received funding to study the Bridge Program to determine the best practices that came out of the program’s initial years of existence that could help guide continuous program improvement and determine the successes of the Bridge Program
The CCRC Research team developed nine research questions to guide the evaluation of
the Bridge Program and, with assistance from CDSS, selected 12 counties across California
to participate in the evaluation The two-year evaluation focused on the Bridge Program’s implementation and enrollment process, what specific challenges participating agencies
and staf encountered, as well as desired changes and recommendations for improvement to the Bridge Program Due to the unique timing of this evaluation, understanding the unique challenges caused by COVID-19 was added as an additional focus of the study Across both study years, CCRC Research conducted 223 key informant interviews (KIIs) with child welfare and resource and referral administrators, child care navigators, and trauma-informed care coaches, trainers, caregivers, and child care providers participating in the Bridge Program CCRC Research also distributed surveys and received over 950 responses from caregivers
and providers Caregivers and providers shared their experiences participating in the Bridge Program and providers shared feedback on participating in Trauma-Informed Care training and coaching
Findings from the interviews and surveys conducted with caregivers and providers focused more on outcomes related to the child, the caregiver, or the provider About 40% of caregivers reported they would not or were not sure they would have accepted the child if they did not have access to the Bridge Program indicating that the Bridge Program is reaching its goal of increasing the number of children in foster care that are successfully placed with caregivers Moreover, findings demonstrated that the Bridge Program decreased economic and emotional stress of caregivers
• 96% reported reduced stress levels due to their foster child attending child care
• 84% agreed the Child Care Navigator (CCN) reduced their stress levels
• 76% reported reduced economic stress
• 70% reported reduced emotional stress
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