2019 - 2024
State, Territory, and Tribal Child Care Development Fund (CCDF) Lead Agencies are increasingly asked to use, conduct, and disseminate high-quality, rigorous, and policy-relevant research on child care and early education. They are also expected to use research and evidence to inform their CCDF policy and operational decisions. The purpose of the Center was to assess and build the research and evaluation capacity of State, Territory, and Tribal CCDF Lead Agencies.
The project team conducted a needs assessment in 2021 to learn how lead agencies use research, analyze administrative or program data, and what supports would help them use and conduct future research. Forty-one states and territories and 14 tribal agencies completed the survey. A few key highlights from the survey include:
Most state, territory, and tribal agencies had collaborated at least once with external partners on research.
Most state and territory agencies and more than ½ of tribal agencies had collected data as part of a research study.
- Most state, territory, and tribal agency administrators agreed they needed to better use existing research in decision-making.
Almost half of state and territory respondents and one tribal agency had submitted at least one proposal to the federal government, foundations, or other agencies during the past 5 years to support research and evaluation.
State, territory, and tribal agency administrators reported that several types of research and evaluation capacity building supports are helpful but that interactive supports are more useful, such as online webinars/workshops, peer learning with other CCDF Agencies, and receiving one-on-one consultation.
The Center published several resources and webinars for CCDF Lead Agency staff on research and evaluation, such as:
How to Build and Strengthen Partnerships between CCDF Lead Agencies and Early Care and Education Researchers: Supporting Evidence to Inform Policy
Partnering with Parents in Research: Community-Engaged Approaches to Improve Data Collection and Analysis
How to Tell the Story of Language Revitalization and Cultural Resilience Strategies in Tribal CCDF Programs
Getting Help Answering Your Policy Questions: How to Plan for Research Procurement
Working with Administrative Data in Early Childhood and Related Fields
Engaging Stakeholders in Research: Tips for CCDF Lead Agencies
The Center also developed resources for CCDF Lead Agencies on Narrow Cost Analysis (NCA). Lead Agencies are required to consider cost information when setting payment rates. Many agencies meet this requirement by doing a NCA. To support these efforts, these resources:
define NCA
describe three widely used approaches for doing an NCA
describe how CCDF Lead Agencies can use cost data when setting payment rates
State examples of narrow cost analysis are also included. These resources draw on discussions with CCDF Administrators and experts within and outside the Office of Child Care.
Receiving Individualized Support for Evaluation and Capacity Building (ECE-RISE) launched in 2022. As part of ECE-RISE, the Center provided research and evaluation capacity building supports tailored to the participating agency’s needs. They also supported these agencies as they planned and completed their own research project to get information to help the agency improve policies, programs, or services.
The project is led by Urban Institute (Julia Isaacs as Project Director and Teresa Derrick-Mills as Principal Investigator) with a subcontract to Mathematica (Gretchen Kirby as Co-PI).
Points of contact: Alysia Blandon and Dianna Tran
Information collections related to this project have been reviewed and approved by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs under ACF’s Generic Clearance for Formative Data Collections for ACF Research (OMB #0970-0356). Related materials are available on RegInfo.gov: