CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - All low-income working parents in Illinois can get subsidized child care, under one of the most comprehensive programs in the nation, but more than half the parents get that subsidized care from providers exempted from state licensing.
This mostly reflects a positive choice by parents, not a serious flaw in the system, say researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, in an interim report from a three-year study on "license-exempt" child care under the Illinois Child Care Program.
For reasons of trust, convenience, flexibility and what they perceive as being best for their children, many parents are choosing license-exempt providers - often a grandmother, other relative or friend - even when licensed care is available, the researchers said.
"From the perspectives of both the parents and the providers, the choice tends to be a positive one," says Steve Anderson, a professor of social work at Illinois and a co-author of the report.
Some in the child-care field have argued that parents choose license-exempt care because not enough licensed care is available, or parents are not aware of it, "or they just don't know what good quality care is," said Dawn Ramsburg, another co-author, and the coordinator of research programs for the university-based Child Care Resource Service.
"And yet when you ask the parents why they chose this, they're giving you essentially what you could pull out as a quality child-care check list." Ramsburg said. They were often very articulate in explaining their choice, she said. "They're saying 'these things matter to me about how my kid is being cared for.' "
Another concern has been that license-exempt providers, many of them low-income themselves, are motivated primarily by the subsidy. Most providers, however, said they were motivated primarily by an interest in helping and teaching the children, and improving the quality of life for the parents and their families, Ramsburg said. Compensation (less than $10 per child per day) was far down on their list of reasons to do it.
The research involved surveys, interviews and focus groups, concentrating in three diverse areas of the state: the North Lawndale and South Lawndale neighborhoods in Chicago, Peoria County, and seven rural counties in southern Illinois.
The research placed particular emphasis on the perspectives of license-exempt providers and the parents who use them. In addition, researchers conducted a random survey of child-care-subsidy program staff around the state and interviewed other "key informants" who could provide perspective on child-care issues.
Funding for the study came from a $525,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The project is a collaboration between the university's School of Social Work and department of human and community development, and the Illinois Department of Human Services, which administers the Illinois Child Care Program. (The program has grown dramatically in recent years, Anderson noted, and now pays out three times what is distributed in welfare payments through the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program in Illinois.)
Research from the interim report was presented in November at the National Association for the Education of Young Children, held in Chicago, and will be presented in April at the Child Care Policy Research Conference in Washington, D.C.
Anderson noted that the research showed how complex parents' decisions often are regarding child care. "It's not enough to just put a bunch of child-care centers out there and assume that people are going to want to flock to them, because they're not," he said.
Low-income parents often must work evening, night or alternating shifts, which counts out many child-care centers as possibilities. And a grandmother or friend often can be more flexible when a parent is delayed at work.
The tendency toward using relatives and friends for child-care mirrors national trends, Ramsburg noted. "These families aren't doing a lot different than families who aren't low-income," she said.
Many child-care professionals question how much license-exempt care should be promoted, given that it is less expensive than licensed care, and therefore might discourage the state from spending resources to develop more licensed care, Anderson said. But given the preference by many parents for license-exempt care, he and Ramsburg recommended that the state provide more support in the form of higher subsidies, as well as access to information about community programs, training opportunities, teaching materials, etc.
"When we talked to the providers, they were very hungry for information," Ramsburg said. "They recognized that there was more than they could learn."