Designing Family-Friendly Consumer Education on Child Care

This brief provides research-based information to support state agency staff as they design and implement consumer education websites and other resources, such as quality rating and improvement systems. Consumer education efforts are undergoing revisions in response to provisions in the Child Care and Development Block Grant Act of 2014 and the 2016 Child Care and Development Fund final rule. Specifically, each State and Territory must maintain a website that contains information about child care providers in the State or local area, results of providers’ monitoring and inspection reports (including health and safety violations), and lists of resources for parents, including financial assistance. In this brief, we seek to provide meaningful information that will allow state leaders to understand general applicability of research findings while acknowledging that multiple approaches are needed to address families’ diverse needs.