Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) lead agencies are eager to build their capacity to research and evaluate the policy changes they are making in response to the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG) Act of 2014. The changes that states, tribes, and territories are making offer a unique opportunity to evaluate and research the effectiveness of different policy approaches.
The Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation in the Administration for Children and Families awarded a contract to the Urban Institute to create the Center for Supporting Research on CCDBG implementation to support CCDF lead agencies. The center will develop resources to help CCDF lead agencies build research and evaluation capacity, carry out research, and disseminate findings to meet CCDBG reauthorization goals.
More information on the center’s activities can be found in our one-page overview.
This brief is intended to support Child Care Development Fund (CCDF) lead agency staff and others who oversee or conduct research on programs and initiatives for home-based child care providers. It includes a review and summary table of 19 recent studies involving engagement of home-based providers in research, along with best-practice evaluation tips from experienced researchers.
This guide provides a concise, curated list of written and online resources to support CCDF lead agencies seeking to build research and evaluation capacity. The user-friendly, practical tools summarized in the guide cover the following topics: comprehensive resources on program evaluation, logic models, evaluation design and planning, building organizational research and evaluation capacity, working with evaluators, and working with administrative data.
This tool supports CCDF lead agencies in strengthening their capacity to carry out and use research in decision-making. The tool can help you reflect on your organization’s strengths, identify gaps, and set priorities for ongoing improvement.