Consumer Education and Parental Choice in Early Care and Education

OMB Control # 0970 – 0356 and Expiration Date: 02/29/2024

CCDF Administrator Interview Guide

Introduction

Thank you very much for agreeing to participate in this interview. Before we begin, I want to remind you about the purpose of this study and interview and give you some important information about your participation.

Human Subjects Language

Why are we doing this study? We are doing this study to learn more about your [state/territory]’s child care consumer education (CE, interviewers will read as “consumer education”) for families with children birth to thirteen. You are invited to take part as someone who is knowledgeable about your [state/territory]’s child care CE.

Who is funding this Study? This study is funded by ACF’s Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation (OPRE). ACF has contracted NORC, with subcontracts to the Urban Institute and Child Care Aware© of America, to conduct the study.

What would I be asked to do if I am in this study? You will be asked to participate in an interview and have the option to share documents with us.

Discomforts and Risks: There are no risks in taking part in this research beyond those experienced in daily life.

Benefits: Our goal is that this interview will provide a better understanding of your [state/territory]’s current child care CE, to inform our future research designs and enable us to develop tools to help CCDF lead agencies evaluate their own CE efforts.

How long will it take me to participate in this study? Public reporting burden for this collection of information is estimated to be about 40 minutes per interview, including the time for reviewing instructions. If you choose to gather and submit relevant documents, we estimate this optional task will take an additional 30 minutes. Send comments regarding this burden estimate or any other aspect of this collection of information, including suggestions for reducing this burden to NORC at the University of Chicago 55 E. Monroe St, 30^th Floor, Chicago, IL 60603

Privacy: NORC will maintain your interview responses with the identity of your [state/territory]. and share these responses with ACF. ACF will use the data to inform future research and planning. Information from this study may be securely shared with qualified researchers to help guide future research. Some findings that do not identify specific agencies may be made public. The NORC IRB and Office for Human Research Protections in the Department of Health and Human Services may review records related to this research study. If you choose to share documents with us, we will collect them through a secure portal. NORC will share summaries of the content from the documents with ACF. We will not share the documents themselves with ACF or others outside of our research team. We will do our best to protect the privacy of all the information we collect from you to the extent permitted by law, but no one can guarantee complete privacy of data that is sent over the Internet.

Right to Ask Questions: If you have any questions or concerns about your rights as a research participant, please contact the NORC IRB Manager by toll-free phone number at (866) 309-0542.

OMB: An agency may not conduct or sponsor, and a person is not required to respond to, a collection of information unless it displays a currently valid OMB control number. The OMB number and expiration date for this collection are OMB #: 0970-0356, Exp: 02/29/2024.

Voluntary Participation: Your decision to be in this research is voluntary. You can stop at any time and do not have to answer any questions you do not want to answer. If you choose not to take part, there will be no penalty and your [state/territory] will not lose any federal benefits or program support.

If you decide to withdraw before completing the study, we will either, (1) keep and analyze already collected data relating up to the time of subject withdrawal with your permission; or (2) delete and exclude your data from any analysis, if requested.

• Do you have any questions or concerns before we begin?

We would like to record our conversation today, so we do not miss any details. We will store audio files securely and only the study team will use them to improve our notes. Recordings will be deleted once our notes are completed. These recordings will not be shared with ACF.

Also, the study team will securely store interview notes and any documents you share with us as part of this study, and they will remain accessible only to members of the study team. The study team will destroy all data in 2035 (NORC contract ends 9/24/2025).

• Do I have your permission to record this interview?

  • [If the interviewee says yes] Thank you. If you are ready, I will start recording now. If you would like me to stop recording at any time during the interview, please let me know.

• [If the interviewee says no] Let me add another team member to help take notes. [message team member who is on standby to join the meeting]

If you are ready, we can begin the interview now.

[Upon confirmation, start recording and begin interview]

Study Overview

During the interview today, we would like to discuss the types of CE your agency and its partners provide to families that help them search for and select child care and how your agency may be evaluating or monitoring successes and challenges with helping families find the information they need. We define CE as information, resources, and services your agency provides to families to support their child care search and selection as well as what your agency does to help families find and use CE.

Also, our team spent some time going over the CE information in your [state’s/territory]’s 2022-2024 CCDF plan posted to your webpage, so we may follow-up on some of the responses your agency provided in the plan. We want to hear about all of your [state/territory]’s CE activities, which may include those funded through sources other than CCDF.

Interview

We’d like to start by learning a little bit about you and your background.

Background

[In this section, you are trying to build rapport with the participant]

1. Please tell us a bit about your personal experience working in this or other CCDF lead agencies. In what organizations have you worked, in what roles, and for how long?

Notes

[share screen with visual aid] I’d like to briefly walk through the topics we plan to discuss next. You may want to reference the images I sent via email when I confirmed our interview time. First, we’d like to learn more about your [state/territory]’s CE resources and how families use them. Then, we would like to discuss your agency’s outreach to parents. Next, we’d like to learn about how your agency evaluates and monitors CE. Last, we want to discuss how you would say your agency’s resources have helped families in your [state/territory].

[move to next slide] In a minute, we will discuss your agency’s CE resources and how families use them. Our team thinks of CE resources as falling into three buckets – materials, services, and CE website(s). I wanted to quickly describe what I mean when say materials, services, and CE website(s). [use pointer tool to direct the interviewee’s attention to each] When I say CE ‘materials’ I mean resources contained in paper documents (e.g., flyers, newsletters), videos, radio ads, billboards, and other items that may not be available on the web. When I say CE ‘services’ I mean any interaction between a person and a family where that person provides information to help the family in their search and selection process. For example, this could be an interaction with a CCR&R or with your staff at a local event or during a webinar. When I say CE ‘website’ I mean the CE website, online search tools, or online resources. For each resource type, we want to learn about the resources your agency created, how your agency tailors those resources to meet the needs of families in your [state/territory], and the barriers or challenges you think families experience when trying to use those resources and what your agency does to try to remove those barriers.

We would particularly like to understand your state’s CE efforts as they may relate to families with various and differing needs, such as those with infants and toddlers and/or school-aged child/ren; who speak a language other than English, need non-traditional hour care, or need subsidized child care, have parents or children with disabilities; or families with other needs.

We are also interested in CE related to different child care settings, like centers and home-based care, quality of child care sites, and information related to location, ages served, contact information, price, and available slots at particular child care sites.

CE Materials, Services, and Website,

CE Materials

2. We are going to talk about your website in a bit, but for now tell us about all the other materials your agency uses to inform families as they search for and select child care?

Notes

3. In what ways, if any, does your agency tailor materials to meet the needs of specific families as they search for and select child care?

Notes

4. What kinds of barriers or challenges, if any, do you think families experience that makes it difficult for them to use these materials? Why?

   1. [if participant does not mention how they remove barriers] Tell me what, if anything, your agency has done to remove those barriers/challenges for families who are trying to use these materials?

Notes

CE Services

5. What services does your agency provide to help inform families as they search for and select care? If some services are only available in certain parts of your state/territory, please mention where the service is available.

Notes

6. In what ways, if any, does your agency tailor services to meet the needs of families when they are searching for and selecting child care?

Relevant CCDF plan text (paste text below)

1.7.1: CCR&R Activities

Notes

7. What kinds of barriers or challenges, if any, do you think families experience that makes it difficult for them to find and use these services? Why?[if participant does not mention how they remove barriers] Tell me what, if anything, your agency has done to remove those barriers/challenges for families who are trying to use these services?

Notes

CE Website

1. Now we would like to talk about your agency’s CE website. How does your agency use its CE website to inform families as they search for and select child care?

Notes

9. In what ways, if any, does your agency tailor your CE website to meet the needs of specific families?

Notes

10. What kinds of barriers or challenges, if any, do you think families might experience that makes it difficult for them to use the website? Why?

    1. [if participant does not mention how they remove barriers] Tell me what, if anything, your agency has done to remove those barriers/challenges for families who are trying to use the website?

Notes

Outreach: How families find and use CE website, materials, and services

11. Tell me how your agency communicates or lets families know about the website, materials, and services that you have mentioned. How do you advertise/promote the materials, services, and website? For example, emails, listservs, mailing flyers, community events, internet marketing. If your agency does outreach in specific communities, please tell us where you do that outreach and why.

Notes 

12. Taking into account your agency’s CE activities to date, what would you say are the biggest remaining challenges your agency faces in helping to meet the specific needs of families in your [state/territory]? Are there other challenges you would like to share?

Notes

Evaluation and monitoring of CE

13. How, if at all, does your agency or your partners collect any information and/or data to evaluate or monitor your CE? [if needed, provide examples: Such as website traffic, number of referrals given by the CCR&R, surveys]

    1. [if yes] What information or data is collected?

       1. [if the participant mentions a survey, ask] Can you provide us with a copy of the survey questions?

    2. [if yes] What has your agency learned from evaluation or monitoring activities about how well your agency’s materials, services, and website are working and for which families?

       1. [if participant mentions a report, ask] Can you provide us with a copy of that report?

Notes 

Lastly, we’d like to discuss some of the impacts of your CE on families in your [state/territory].

Impact of Consumer Education Efforts and Wrap Up

14. Overall, what, in your view, has been the biggest positive impact of your agency’s CE on families in your [state/territory]?

Notes

15. We’ve talked about a lot of different things. Is there anything else you would like to share with us about your agency’s CE that may not have fallen under the topics we discussed?

Notes

Before we wrap up, we would like to ask you a couple of questions about other materials we can review to learn about your CE activities.

Follow Up on Additional Sources of Information for Step 3

16. Are there any additional sources, such as websites or documents, about your [state/territory]’s CE activities that might be helpful for our team to review other than your 2022-2024 CCDF plan and official [state/territory] website? We are especially interested in examples of your CE materials or outreach activities, and in any products related to your monitoring and evaluation activities.

[if additional sources are identified, ask: Would you like to designate one of your staff as the contact point for sharing documents with us? If so, what is that person’s name and contact information so that we may contact them regarding this request [get name, title, email address, and phone number of person].

Notes

Thank you for taking the time to tell us about your [state/territory]’s consumer education activities.

[If they said they will share documents with us] We will follow up with [you/your designated staff member] soon via email to request documents you agreed to share with us.

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