Health and Safety in a Family Child Care Network: An Analysis of Violation Data of Routine, Full Unannounced Inspections

Abstract

Objective: To analyze how engagement with a staffed family child network is associated with compliance on health and safety regulations among family day care (FDC) homes.

Methods: Publically available data on health and safety inspection violations on FDC homes were merged with engagement data from a staffed family child network. Descriptive analysis, logistic regression, and latent class analysis were used.

Results: Network FDC homes, compared to non-network FDC homes, were less likely to have health and safety violations in the areas of Child/Family/Staff Documentation (43.1% vs. 53.6%, p = 0.001) and Indoor Safety (36.0% vs. 42.6%, p = .041). Controlling for area median income and for decades since obtaining license, network FDC homes had fewer violations, fewer violation categories, and less variety of violation categories. Additionally, FDC homes which were not engaged with the staffed family child network but were in the city or town in which the network offered services, performed better compared to FDC homes in cities or towns without network resources.

Conclusions for practice: The better compliance among network FDC homes and among FDC homes in cities and towns where the network offers services, suggests that the network is having positive effects on health and safety quality in FDC homes. A staffed child care network may be a means to improve child care quality and may be a means of improving educational and health outcomes for children.

Keywords: Child care; Health; Inspections; Licensure; Network; Safety.