Soliciting Input for the Consumer Education and Parental Choice in Early Care and Education Project

Instrument 1: Engagement Guiding Questions

OMB Control #: 0970-0356

Expiration Date: XX/XX/XXXX

NOTE: This document includes example questions that will be used for the engagements. Questions may be posed verbally, through written correspondence, or in a survey. The number and types of questions posed will be based on each specific engagement, purpose, and audience. Up to 10 questions could be posed per engagement.

Example Possible Questions During Any Stages of the CEPC Project

1. What questions do you have for us about the project?

2. What do you hope to learn from this project?

3. When you think of child care consumer education strategies, what do you think of?

4. What do you think are the biggest challenges facing [states, territories or Tribes] as they [decide on, deliver, evaluate] their child care consumer education strategies?

5. What do you think are the most promising child care consumer education strategies [states, territories or Tribes] [provide, contract to provide, make available for families]?

6. What do you think are the biggest challenges of organizations contracted to deliver child care consumer education strategies for [states, territories or Tribes]? a) What are their biggest strengths? b) What do you think are the biggest challenges parents are facing [as they try to understand non-parental child care options, as they seek help, as they engage with consumer education services]? (Probe to learn about search, challenges based on child, family, or community characteristics, etc.)

7. How do you think this project can help [parents, child care consumer education organizations, CCDF Lead Agencies, other governmental agencies, community organizations]?

8. What concerns do you have about [insert specific consumer education-related practice]?

9. In your opinion, what are some of the most innovative or effective consumer education practices focused on supporting [select one of these populations: first-time parents, teen parents, grandparents, families who are homeless, low income families, families with limited English proficiency, families in rural areas, families in urban areas] to [select one of these steps in the journey: build awareness, increase knowledge, support search, support selection]?

10. In what ways do you think we can best capture or examine consumer education responsiveness to [equity, cultural sensitivity, diverse parents’ needs]?

11. How do you typically engage [parents, caregivers, child care operators, child care resource and referral agencies, or whatever group has been identified]?

12. How diverse a group are the [parents, caregivers, child care operators, child care resource and referral agencies, or whatever group has been identified] [you work with, who are in your network, who use your services]?

    

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13. Please tell us about the characteristics of the parents [you work with, who are in your network, who use your services]? Probe to find out about: a) Family structure [in other words about how many are single, married, divorced, partners, multigenerational, same gender, multi-gender]; b) First-time parents; c) grandparents; d) birth, adopted or foster parents; e) races and ethnicities of parents; f) income levels of parents (such as a broad range, mostly lower-income, mostly middle class, mostly higher income, etc.); g) primary language the parents [are comfortable expressing themselves in, engage with you in] h) cultural characteristics or values of parents you think are important for us to know; i) states, communities, or areas of the country where the parents [live, work, need care]; j) age ranges of their children (such as mostly infants and toddlers, three and four-year-olds, school age children, etc.); k) differing abilities of their children (such as typically developing, developmentally delayed, identified disabilities, concerned about special needs, etc.); l) which of the parents [you work with, who are in your network, who use your services] tend to participate the most? Probe on [ones identifying as moms, ones identifying as dads, other caregiver roles, etc.]

14. Why do you think it would be advantageous for the parents [you work with, who are in your network, who use your services] to take part in these engagement sessions?

15. What are their most pressing needs about early care and education search and selection that you think we should consider?

16. What suggestions do you have for the best way to engage parents [you work with, who are in your network, who use your services]? 

17. Who should take the lead in reaching out to parents [you work with, who are in your network, who use your services]? 

18. Would you like to be informed of our recruitment process of the people whose contact information you have provided? 

19. What key considerations for reaching out to parents [you work with, who are in your network, who use your services] should we keep in mind? 

20. What other suggestions do you have for us [related to the specific phase of the project]?

Possible Questions to Inform Study Design

1. What do you want us to be thinking about as we design this particular phase of the study?

2. What do you think are particular strengths or weaknesses of the design?

3. What alternative approaches or sources should we consider using?

4. What [types of, are the characteristics of] the [individuals, groups, communities] we should be reaching out to when we want to learn about [the topic of interest]?

5. What do you think are the most effective ways to recruit [the particular group relevant at that time] to give their perspectives?

6. What insights do you have for engaging [the particular group relevant at that time] in project activities such as data collection or initial engagement?

7. What challenges do you think we are likely to encounter? What recommendations or insights do you have for how we might address those challenges?

8. As you look at [whatever was just presented on or provided to them], what questions do you think are [most or least] important to keep if we have to make trade-offs?

9. As you look at [whatever was just presented on or provided to them], what is the meaning to you?

10. As you look at [whatever was just presented on or provided to them], what is [not understandable, is confusing, needs more clarity]?

11. As you look at [whatever was just presented on or provided to them], do you feel that the information will be relevant to [yourself or your organization]? What resonates the most with you and why?

12. What ways, if any, could extend this work to make it more relevant or useful?

13. As you look at [whatever was just presented on or provided to them] what [aspects, pieces, topics, dimensions, relationships] of the information shared are [the most relevant/informative, least relevant/informative] to you? In what ways? Why?

14. As you look at [whatever was just presented on or provided to them], where and how would you expect or want to receive this information?

Possible Questions to Inform Interpretation of Results and Dissemination

1. What do you want us to be thinking about as we reflect on what we are learning?

2. As you look at [whatever was just presented on or provided to them], what is surprising to you?

3. As you look at [whatever was just presented on or provided to them], what seems to be missing?

4. As you look at [whatever was just presented on or provided to them], are there [any red flags, anything surprising that seems off or wrong]? If yes, what are they?

5. As you look at [whatever was just presented on or provided to them], what, if anything, seems particularly striking, interesting, or informative?

6. As you look at [whatever was just presented on or provided to them], do you see [yourself or your organization represented here]? If yes, in what ways? If no, what are you looking for?

7. As you look at [whatever was just presented on or provided to them], what [particular policies, policy contexts, cultural contexts, community contexts, family contexts, equity contexts] are important for us to consider? What implications should we be thinking about?

8. In what ways do you think we can best discuss consumer education responsiveness to [equity, cultural sensitivity, diverse parents’ needs]?

9. What do you think will be the key challenges to [name of group] in using these findings?

10. As you look at [whatever was just presented on or provided to them], how and where would you expect or want to receive this information?

11. How do you think this information could be most effectively presented to [tailor for relevant group]?