The role of Early Head Start programs in addressing the child care needs of low-income families with infants and toddlers: Influences on child care use and quality

In 1994, the Secretary’s Advisory Committee on Services for Families with Infants and Toddlers set forth a vision for Early Head Start programs in declaring that all child care settings used by Early Head Start families, whether or not the program provides the care directly, must meet the high standards of quality embodied in the Head Start Program Performance Standards. As part of the national Early Head Start Research and Evaluation project, we collected extensive data on the child care settings used by Early Head Start and control group families for their children at three ages (14, 24, and 36 months). This report describes the patterns of child care use by Early Head Start families and the impacts that program participation had on families’ child care use and the quality of care used. (author abstract)