Measuring Non-Parental Care in the NLSCY: Content and Process Issues - August 1999

• Do you provide child care on a regular basis for which you are paid (full-time or part-time)?
• Where do you provide the care?
  • Child's home
  • Provider's home
• What is the going rate in your community for full day of care?
  • Pre-school child
  • Infant
  • School aged child

National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth, 1998

• Do you use child care such as daycare, babysitting, care by a relative or other caregiver, or a nursery school while you are at work or studying?
• Which of the following methods of child care do you use while you are at work or studying? How many hours per week is each type of care used?
  • Care provided in somebody else's home by a relative?
  • Care in own home by a relative other than a sister or brother of the child?
  • Care in own home by a non-relative?
  • Care in a before or after school program?
  • Care in a nursery school/preschool?
  • Care by a brother or sister of the child?
• Which type of arrangement do you consider your main one?
• Last summer, while your child was not in school, what type of child care arrangement did you use while you and your spouse/partner were at work/studying?
• When did you start using this main child care arrangement?
• Is this arrangement a temporary one, or do you think you will continue to have your child cared for by this caregiver for at least another six months?
• In the past 12 months, how many times have you changed your main child care arrangement and/or caregiver, excluding periods of care by yourself ?
• Overall, how many changes in child care arrangements has your child experienced since you began using child care, excluding periods of care by yourself or your spouse/partner?

Comments

• Both the sector study reports and the NLSCY provide information on the various types of environments where care is available:
  Child's home
  1. Relative
  2. Non-relative
  Provider's home
  3. Unregulated
  (a) Relative
  (b) Non-relative
  4. Regulated
  (a) Family day care
  (b) Centre-based care
  (c) Enrichment programs
• The sector studies surveys have some information on affordability, which is a gap in the NLSCY.
• The NLSCY asks about the changes in child care, but gaps in content include: the time the child is in care, availability of care, and accessibility of care. These questions would be best asked of the parents of the NLSCY children.

HRDC child care sector study reports, 1998

Socio-demographic characteristics:

• Gender
• Age
• Marital status
• Number and ages of children
• Income
• Province of residence
• Community population

Education and on-the-job training:

• What is the highest level of education that you have attained?
  • Not completed high school
  • High school diploma
  • Some college or university courses
  • College certificate
  • College diploma
  • Bachelor's degree
  • Post-graduate work or degree
• Is this activity available in your community?
  • Child development
  • Planning children's activities
  • Child guidance/behaviour management
  • Caregiver certificate training program
  • Nutrition
  • First aid/CPR
  • Income tax preparation/financial management
  • Written agreement with parents
  • Organizing the home for child care
  • Services for children with special needs
• Have you participated in the past 12 months?
• How long was the activity?
• Who paid for the activity?
• How satisfied are you with this support?
• Have you been required by your agency or licensing authority to take any special courses?
• If you have not taken courses, please rank relevance of reason for not taking courses?
  • Course is unavailable close to home
  • Timing conflicts with child care
  • Timing conflicts with needs of own children
  • Cannot see a benefit to training
  • No information available on relevant courses
  • Too costly
  • Lack of transportation
  • Already have qualifications

Experience:

• Total no. of years providing paid care (10 hrs or more/ week)...
• As a licensed home provider
  • Unregulated home provider
  • Provider working in another part of child care sector
• Total number of years of paid child care experience

Work week schedule:

• How many weeks did you provide care last year?
• Vacation/sick time?
• How long do you spend on child care related tasks?

Personal characteristics, job satisfaction:

• What title do you use to refer to yourself?
  • Caregiver
  • Child care provider
  • Family day care provider
  • Nanny
  • Babysitter
  • Uses first name
  • Day care provider
  • Grandparent
  • Educator
  • Housekeeper
  • Other relative
  • Home day care provider
• Are you a member of a group or association related to home child care?
• Reasons for providing home child care (list all reasons and main reason)?
  • Want to stay home with own children
  • Being own boss
  • Relatives or friends need care so they can work
  • Like children
  • To prepare children for school
  • There is need for good child care
  • To earn an income
  • Employment experience
• Do you expect to be working in field 3 years from now?
• If you could do it over again, would you choose to work in field?
• Please rate level of satisfaction on scale of 1 to 5 (very satisfied to very unsatisfied)?
  • Hours of work
  • Remuneration (pay)
  • Relationship with parents
  • Relationship with children in care
  • Relationship with licensing authority/agency
  • Licensing/agency requirements
  • Available supports and training
  • Respect for the profession by others

Licensing:

• Which statement best describes the arrangement under which you operate?
  • Personally hold a license to provide family-care
  • Work through a non-profit agency which is licensed
  • Work through a for-profit agency which is licensed
  • Work through a licensed agency, don't know if it is for profit or not
• Why did you chose to become licensed and/or work through an agency?
  • Easier to find families
  • More support services available
  • No negotiation with parents
  • Increased professionalism
  • To be able to take subsidized children
• Is your home inspected? How often? Who inspects your home?
  • Municipal or other government officials
  • Agency home visitors
  • Child care support programs
  • Social workers/special needs workers
• Why are you working privately? (scale of 1 to 5, not at all important, very important)
  • You want more control over your work
  • You want to be able to set your own fees
  • The licensing process was too complicated/long/expensive
  • You can care for more children

Benefits:

Which benefits do you receive?

• Medical/dental
• Group liability insurance
• Disability insurance
• pension outside CPP/QPP
• sick leave
• paid annual vacation
• access to bulk purchasing equipment/toy lending or grant program

• What percentage of your income last year was spent on child care related expenses?

Community resource use:

• Is this resource available?
  • Parent/family resource centres
  • Care giver/drop in play groups
  • Home visits
  • Kits for start - up and/or operating home child care
  • Newsletters
  • Workshops
  • Child related telephone information services
• How often do you use it?
• How satisfied are you with this support?
• Who offers this support?
  • Agency
  • Government
  • College
  • resource centre/support program association

Other:

• Do you meet with other care providers? What for...
  • Children can play together
  • Joint outing for children
  • Coffee, adult conversation
  • Mutual support network
  • Training
• Do you have an assistant?
• For how long each day?

National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth, 1998

• To your knowledge, does this caregiver have any training in early childhood education, or child care, at the college or university level?

Comments

• The sector studies surveys provide a great amount of detail in their questions on the characteristics of the provider, as the goal of the sector studies surveys was to profile the child care workforce (working outside of centres).
• There are many gaps in the NSLCY with regards to provider characteristics. The questions can only be asked of the providers themselves and would therefore need to be included in a provider survey and not in the parent survey.
• Major gaps include: details of the providers' training and experience, job satisfaction, licensing, and community resource use.
• The NLSCY currently asks parents only if their child's caregiver has any specialized child care training.

HRDC child care sector study reports, 1998

• Please list all the children in your care...
  • For each child: age, length of time in provider's care, number of days per week in provider's care, time of arrival and departure each day, presence of special needs

National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth, 1998

• How many other children, if any, are cared for regularly by this caregiver, whether part-time or full-time (including her own children, for the following age groups?
  • Age 3-5 years
  • Age 6 and older
• How often would you say your caregiver praises and encourages your child, and responds promptly when he/she needs help or comforting?
• How often does your caregiver plan activities and use toys and other materials to help your child learn new things?
• How often does your caregiver encourage your child's language development by talking to him/her and asking questions, as well as using songs and stories for this purpose?
• During the past 6 months, how well has your child gotten along with his/her main child care provider?

Comments

• The sector study surveys and the NLSCY both have information on group size and caregiver-child ratios. In the NLSCY, these questions are currently asked of the parent, although the implementation of a care provider survey would allow for these questions to be asked of the provider herself.
• Quality of physical setting is an issue that has not been covered by either survey described in this section. This type of assessment is usually done through direct observation, which is not currently possible for the NLSCY.
• The NLSCY does have some measures of the affective quality of interaction between the caregiver and the child, but more detailed questions asked of the provider would be useful.
• Questions on the developmental appropriateness of experiences, sensitivity of providers responses and initiatives, and the intentionality of the provider would also better measure quality of care.

National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth, 1998

Physical health

• Motor and Social Development scale
• Absence of illness
• Absence of injuries

Emotional health

• Temperament scale
• Behaviour scales

Social knowledge and competence

• About how many days a week does she do things with friends? (children aged 4 and older)
• About how many close friends does he/she have? Children aged 4 and older)
• Is he/she shy when meeting new friends? Children aged 4 and older)

Cognitive skills

• Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test - Revised (PPVT-R)

Comments

• The sector studies surveys interviewed providers and not children. Therefore, these surveys do not offer any information on child outcomes. Other large scale surveys conducted in other countries have used outcomes similar to the NLSCY. Information on a wide range of outcomes allows for research to look at the many ways that non-parental care can impact on child outcomes.