Childcare Technical Assistance: The Importance of Voluntary, Strengths- and Trust-Based Services for Improving Childcare Quality and Supporting the Childcare Workforce

Background and Purpose: The US childcare system plays important roles in the wellbeing and development of children, as a support to enable parental workforce participation, and as a place of employment for a predominantly female and underpaid workforce. Childcare quality is uneven at best, and despite structural barriers to pay adequacy, positive workplace conditions, and opportunities for career advancement, efforts to improve childcare quality often focus on increasing performance expectations for already over-burdened and under-supported childcare workers. Technical Assistance (TA) programs provide one potential avenue for supporting childcare workers in ways that are strengths-based and oriented simultaneously to improvements in service quality and in worker wellbeing. Little is known, however, about how these programs work, or their strengths, challenges, or role within the childcare regulatory and services landscape.

Methods: This study explored the nature, strengths, and challenges of TA programs delivered through a southern state’s First Steps program. 4 virtual focus groups were conducted - 2 with technical assistance providers (TAPs) (n=13) who work directly with childcare workers, and two with executive directors (EDs) (n=10) who administer TA programs while navigating the broader service environment in which they are embedded. A semi-structured discussion guide focused on program key elements, TA goals and the conditions in which goals are more or less likely to be accomplished, and recommendations for program improvement. Groups lasted approximately 90 minutes, and were recorded, transcribed, and analyzed using NVivo 12. Data was analyzed thematically with a combination of a priori and emergent coding, using a constant comparative approach to develop new codes, and to clarify and refine the meaning of codes. Following initial coding, codes were grouped thematically into broader categories.

Results: Thematic categories included: the nature of TA and what TAPs do; the importance of relationships in TA; childcare quality and challenges to achieving it; and strengths/unique characteristics of TA programs. Key findings included: 1) TA plays a unique role in the childcare landscape, because participation is voluntary, non-regulatory, strengths-based, long-term, individualized, and grounded in trusting and empowering relationships; 2) TA focuses on quality in a more substantive and holistic manner than do regulatory (e.g. licensing; quality rating) approaches, creating the potential for greater and more sustained quality improvements; 3) effective TA is experienced as value-added by blending the introduction of new approaches with hands-on modeling and problem solving about how to make those approaches work in real world settings; and 4) even with effective TA, structural barriers and a lack of public awareness about the importance of childcare are impediments to adequately resourcing childcare services and the workers who deliver them.

Conclusions and Implications: Because TA is experienced as value added rather than a new burden for childcare workers, expansion of TA programs has the potential to simultaneously improve childcare worker wellbeing, and the quality of care that is provided. Although more needs to be known about the outcomes of TA programs, insights from TAPs and EDs point to program importance and the need for structural improvements to support both workers and childcare quality.