Home-Based Child Care Research
Action-oriented and equity-focused research for transformational change
APPLIED RESEARCH AT ERIKSON INSTITUTE
Dedicated to Supporting the Home-Based Child Care Sector
Erikson Institute evidence-based research and implementation tools for quality child care policy and practice change
Home-based child care (HBCC) is the most common form of child care in the United States, particularly in racially, culturally, linguistically, and geographically marginalized communities. It includes a continuum of practitioners from grandparents to licensed child care educators who care for children in their own homes, rather than a child care facility or daycare.
Did you know?
Home-Based Child Care (HBCC) is the #1 most common source of child care in the US
BACKGROUND
Since 2007 Erikson Institute has been dedicated to growing the evidence base about HBCC and developing resources that aid this critical sector. While HBCC practitioners and the families they care for have historically been overlooked in research, policy, and practice, Erikson aims to grow the movement for HBCC recognition and improve the lives of HBCC practitioners, children, and families.
Transforming Child Care Systems
Erikson seeks to promote transformative systems and policy change by addressing gaps between knowledge and practice alongside HBCC practitioners and families. By conceptualizing and executing home-based child care research, along with research articles and tools, Erikson is able to help create systems that focus on children, families, and their caregivers.
Our research and evidence focus on four key areas:
Key Area 1
Understanding the Strengths of Home-Based Child Care
Part of the fabric of nearly every community and neighborhood in the U.S.
Research shows that HBCC practitioners leverage strengths and assets from these lived experiences to deliver high-quality care and early childhood education for children, families, and communities. HBCC includes features of quality that are distinct and often overlooked in policy and practice conversations.
Our team explores how home based child care providers:
- Conceptualize quality
- Provide care during nontraditional hours across cultural backgrounds
- Identify differences between practice and policies
- Play an essential role during and beyond COVID-19 crisis
- Enhance PreK systems
Key Area 2
Unpacking the Shifts in the HBCC sector
A critical component of the Care and Education Workforce
Home-based childcare helps ensure all families have access to high-quality care and early learning that meets their needs, preferences, and priorities. Shifts in the supply and availability of HBCC for children and families have been documented across the U.S.
Our team examines some of the factors that contribute to family child care educators’ decisions to enter or leave licensed family child care. Erikson’s research suggests that shifts in the supply of licensed family child care may be driven by the intersection of challenges with economic sustainability, working conditions, and publicly-funded care and education systems, as well as personal factors that family child care educators may face running a business in their own home.
Key Area 3
HBCC Policy Implementation and Navigation
Multiple Systems Lead to Challenges
Policies and systems are often difficult for HBCC providers to navigate and participate in, especially when they participate in multiple systems at once.
Our team works with a variety of partners to understand and provide guidance for:
- Informing policy agencies’ support of HBCC providers
- Building more equitable systems
- Creating more responsive licensing systems
- Implementing Family Child Care (FCC) in mixed-delivery PreK systems
2024 Child Care and Development Fund Final Rule
Erikson’s HBCC Policy Impact
Erikson’s research about HBCC networks and many evidence-based policies that Erikson advocates for were referenced in the federal Child Care and Child Development Fund that provides subsidies for almost 1 million working families with low incomes. Those policies include:
- Changes to subsidy rates and payment policies to promote economic well-being for family child care providers
- Expansion of access to early care for families who work nontraditional hours across all HBCC settings
- Improved governance that includes provider and family voices
Key Area 4
Home-Based Child Care Networks
Building Supportive Infrastructure for HBCC
HBCC Networks are interconnected groups of HBCC practitioners including family child care educators and family, friend, and neighbor caregivers. These groups come together to enhance quality, access, and sustainability for HBCC. Networks overall are a promising strategy for nurturing HBCC practitioners’ strengths, supporting them through all phases of their careers, and easing the burden of participating in multiple policies and systems.
Our team conducts implementation research with networks to increase knowledge of practitioners’ experiences receiving supports from networks and networks’ implementation and delivery of services.
Explore HBCC Network Tools & Resources
Grow Your Support for HBCC Providers
Erikson Institute includes actionable recommendations for networks through research-to-policy briefs, white papers, op eds, frameworks and more. These home-based child care tools and resources can be used by networks to strengthen their supports for providers.
This tool examines the quality of relationships and interactions between providers and staff.
This evidence-based framework addresses 11 quality benchmarks for HBCC networks.
This toolkit can help networks assess their own HBCC in six areas.
These tools address supports and resources for health, mental health, financial stability, and social-emotional well-being.
Meet the Team
Research Manager
Research Analyst
Research Assistant
Doctoral Research Assistant
Research Assistant
Featured Research Projects
Discover Groundbreaking Research Studies About HBCC
Explore these studies and publications from Erikson’s HBCC Research Initiative
Learn more about Home-Based Child Care
Connect with the HBCC Research Team to better understand and support HBCC providers in your community