This summary highlights key takeaways from a partnership among Public Policy Associates, the Michigan Department of Lifelong Education, Advancement, and Potential, and the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services funded by a grant awarded in 2019 by the US Department of Health and Human Services, Administration of Children and Families. Explore takeaways from other Child Care Policy Research Partnership Grant teams here.

Implementing child care policy changes is often complicated by the many actors involved. In Michigan, as in many other states, two state agencies must coordinate on child care program changes: 

• the Michigan Lifelong Education, Achievement, and Potential (MiLEAP) agency, whose Office of Child and Development Care sets child care policy and controls funding, and
• the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS), whose eligibility specialists work in county offices. They review families’ applications for benefits and explain program requirements to those families.

To understand the results of their collaboration, this research team examined how the two agencies worked toward their shared goal of implementing 17 policy changes between 2015 and 2022. The team also looked at the effects of these policy changes.

This summary draws upon team self-assessments from both agencies and annual surveys of MDHHS eligibility specialists to summarize the communications lessons they learned while working together to implement these changes.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Interagency communication was key to ensuring the policy changes were effectively implemented. Over four years, lead staff at both agencies rated their policy-related communications with one another as generally effective. They pointed to careful updates to the state’s public-benefits data system and collaborative problem-solving as beneficial to policy coordination.
• Eligibility specialists thought interagency communication improved over time. Eligibility specialists who noted “communication between the state agencies” as one of the top three issues with policy rollout dropped from 27 to 14 percent between 2021 and 2023.
• Eligibility specialists reported improvements in internal communications and the agencies’ external communications to families between 2021 and 2023. Even so, in 2023 less than half of the specialists thought policy changes were well communicated to them. And only about a third believed changes were well communicated to families.
• The state agency used more tools to communicate policy changes to staff, child care providers, and families. Early on, state agency staff sent informational memos to eligibility specialists, updated the program manual, and updated the data system. Later, they expanded their efforts by launching a public-awareness campaign about the eligibility threshold increase. They also added case status information to the provider billing system and created tip sheets to make it easier for eligibility specialists to explain new policies to families.

POLICY AND PROGRAM IMPLICATIONS

The following lessons learned over the course of this study could help other states coordinate across agencies to successfully implement policy changes:

• Set up regular and clear communication about policy changes. Agencies should consider using multiple modes to update eligibility staff, families, and providers.
• Proactively think about what to communicate to each audience and how. This can contribute to greater awareness and smoother policy implementation. Design materials that are easy to understand, like frequently asked questions.
• Recognize that there are many steps between approving a new policy and successfully implementing it in the field. These steps can take months to achieve. They include data system updates, program manual updates, notifications to staff, communication with providers and families, and troubleshooting.
• Build relationships among agency staff members over time. This makes it easier to identify potential barriers, find ways to address challenges, and improve program quality.

METHODOLOGY

To study how effectively the agencies coordinated with one another, the research team asked each agency to complete an annual Policy Coordination Self-Assessment Tool. The team had agencies score themselves and discuss such topics as mission alignment, quality of communication, and whether policies achieved their intended goals. Teams of four to six staff at each agency completed the self-assessment. The researchers then met with two agency leads to review the results and gather further feedback.

They also conducted an annual survey of eligibility specialists, collecting between 663 and 897 responses each year. The survey asked the specialists how they thought the new policies affected program processes and families. One possible limitation of the survey results was that specialists who did not respond may have had different views than those who did respond.