Home-based child care (HBCC) providers care for over seven million children under age 5 in the United States, but many of these providers face barriers to accessing professional development opportunities outside of the home. This brief examines opportunities to support HBCC providers’ professional development through home visiting. As an intervention typically provided to economically disadvantaged families with children under school age, home visiting encompasses a range of supports provided in the family’s home by professionals such as social workers or nurses. Existing home visiting models focus on supporting caregivers—including biological parents, foster and adoptive parents, grandparents, or others who provide primary care for children in a home—in their interactions with their children. The in-home nature of the intervention has the potential to meet the training needs of HBCC providers in a convenient way. Adaptations to home visiting curricula, however, will need to address the unique challenges of working with multiple children across a range of ages and providing developmentally appropriate care and education.
This brief is one in a set of three that explore the infrastructure needed to support the use of home visiting models for HBCC. The other briefs examine policy and funding approaches and professional development systems to support this work. All three briefs draw on a Child Trends study that considered the feasibility of adapting home visiting models to support HBCC providers. More information about the study behind this brief and about home visiting curricula can be found in Child Trends’ full report: Examining the Feasibility of Using Home Visiting Models to Support Home-Based Child Care Providers.
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