Assessing Initiatives for Family, Friend, and Neighbor Child Care: An Overview of Models and Evaluations

This paper presents an overview of current efforts to document or evaluate initiatives for family, friend, and neighbor child care. The initiatives are grouped into two categories: those that view these caregivers through the child care lens and aim to improve the quality of care that they provide to children; and those that see these caregivers and their care as a natural extension of the family and aim to strengthen it through approaches drawn from parent education or family support. In some cases, the distinction between the models is blurred because the strategies they use are similar. In other cases, initiatives may rely on more than one strategy to achieve their goals irrespective of the model. The descriptions of each model include information about goals, service delivery strategies, and the information that is commonly collected. Examples of several specific programs are provided to illustrate the models. Most of the data are based on interviews with program administrators and staff as well as program reports. If there have been formal evaluations, these are described as well