Families commonly make decisions about child care and early education (CCEE). CCEE supports children's learning and parents' work and education. Families may use CCEE in a child care center, home, or school setting. They may use a licensed program or relatives, friends, or neighbors to provide care. To support families who are looking for CCEE,…

Family child-care programs (FCCs) are a unique and vital part of the Massachusetts child-care and education system. FCC owners tend to serve some of the highest-need children and families in the Commonwealth, yet the owners and assistants who run these programs often take home some of the lowest wages among educators. While much research has been…

In March 2022, Child Trends contracted with the Minnesota Department of Human Services (DHS) to conduct an independent evaluation of Parent Aware, Minnesota's quality rating and improvement system (QRIS) for early care and education (ECE) programs. The evaluation, required by the 2021 Minnesota Legislature, includes several research activities…

The purpose of this study was to examine the efficacy of the Family Check-Up initiated during kindergarten on teacher-report of children's emotional and behavior concerns in fourth grade. Participants were 57 primary caregivers, along with their children and teachers. Participants were randomized to a Family Check-Up condition or school-as-usual…

New America has been running a learning cohort known as the Early Care and Education (ECE) Implementation Working Group, a set of 18 city and county birth-to-five and preschool programs that began meeting in 2022 to help one another expand services quickly and equitably. This brief summarizes the findings and best practices from the working group…

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, attendance difficulties have become an increasing concern for governments and schools internationally. Given that attendance difficulties are often underpinned by psychological and contextual factors, educational psychologists (EPs) are ideally placed to support schools to develop coordinated and informed responses to…

Family literacy programmes can take many shapes, and are often focused on training adult caregivers to engage in particular literacy activities with their young children. In this study, through a series of five, two-hour workshops, we instead worked to help families take advantage of opportunities to infuse literacy learning into their daily…

The purpose of this qualitative case study was to examine and understand educators' perceptions of the community support offered to kindergarten students and their families by the partnership between the Henry Doorly Zoo and Aquarium Robert B. Daugherty Education Center and Bancroft Elementary. These educators included those teaching or leading…

Family literacy programs can be effective for supporting the literacy learning of both parents and children. Educators and community members can be constructive in establishing family literacy programs in their school and in the community. Having knowledge of successful family literacy programs is important for both initiating and continuing with…

Subsidies via the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) are used to improve child care access, and CCDF law prioritizes specific groups of children/families to promote more equitable access. We conducted a latent profile analysis using a national dataset of centers (n = 3,474) utilizing subsidies. We identified subgroups of centers based on…

This study evaluated the feasibility and potential efficacy of a family-based intervention to improve physical activity (PA) and fundamental movement skills (FMS) in preschoolers and modify parenting PA behaviors by using a cluster randomized controlled trial. Underpinning the social cognitive theory, the components of the intervention included…

Collaborative partnerships between families and educators are recognized as significant factors related to children's academic success (Bettencourt et al., 2023). Additionally, parental involvement is positively correlated with early social emotional development (Stamou et al., 2023). Early childhood educators and leaders play an important role in…

Narrative language abilities are foundational to literacy development and are a culturally grounded measure of early literacy for Latino children. This study evaluates the impacts on narrative language abilities and the costs of a 4-week, strengths-based program that leverages two valued sociocultural practices with built-in benefits, personal…

Narrative language abilities are foundational to literacy development and are a culturally grounded measure of early literacy for Latino children. This study evaluates the impacts on narrative language abilities and the costs of a 4-week, strengths-based program that leverages two valued sociocultural practices with built-in benefits, personal…

Food routines are an ecocultural asset of Latino families. This cluster-randomized trial with 248 children (M[subscript age] = 67 months; 50% girls; 13 schools) investigated the impact of a 4-week family program designed to capitalize on food routines in improving Latino kindergarteners' outcomes in the United States. There were moderate-to-large…