Citation URL: http://www.urban.org/SaraBernstein

Many families receiving publicly-funded child care vouchers choose legally unregulated family, friend, and neighbors to care for their children while they work. This paper highlights the experiences of these providers with vouchers in selected communities in 2004. It presents findings from interviews with subsidy agency staff and administrators and focus groups with unregulated providers. It examines the voucher subsidy policies developed for these caregivers in these sites, and how both agency staff and providers perceive these policies and experience working together. The paper is part of the Urban Institute’s Child Care Providers and the Child Care Voucher System project.

This report provides a synthesis of three reports from a multi-phased examination of the connections between the child care and welfare systems for TANF families. It contains 12 overarching findings that emerged from the overall study about the complex interaction between the two systems and discusses the implications of these findings for agencies, TANF clients, and policymakers. It highlights different cross-system approaches, identifies strategies that can minimize administrative duplication and client burden, and sets a framework to help policymakers, administrators, and others interested in designing more effective service delivery systems to help families with child care needs move from welfare to work.

This reports highlights parents' experiences with accessing and retaining subsidies as they move through and off the welfare system. It is based on focus groups that were conducted in 4 sites with parents receiving TANF and child care subsidies, as well as parents who had recently left TANF and were still receiving child care subsidies. It provides information on parents' experiences with key aspects of the TANF/child care subsidy process -- including applying for subsidies, finding a provider, ongoing subsidy requirements, and the transition off welfare -- and discusses the implications for policy and practice.

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