Healthy Development Measurement Toolkit

Indicator PI.1.d Proportion of licensed child care facilities meeting best practice standards for childcare environmental design

Data Source

In process. Gateway to Quality Project.  http://gatewaytoquality.sfsu.edu/about.aspx

Explanation and Limitations

Environmental quality of child care centers and family child care homes in San Francisco is currently being assessed by researchers at the The Marian Wright Edelman Institute, which is based out of San Francisco State University.  This evaluation is conducted as part of the Gateway to Quality Project, a collaborative effort among city agencies, community-based organizations, institutions of higher learning, child care providers, early childhood educators, and private foundations to improve the quality of early child care and education in San Francisco.

The project began in 2002 as a pilot program to identify the quality of child care and education in San Francisco. The Harms Environmental Rating Scales were selected because they have been tested nationally for validity and reliability as evaluation tools for successfully identifying quality in center based and family child care sites. The project is supported by the Department of Children, Youth, and Their Families, Department of Human Services (DHS), San Francisco First Five, and the Miriam and Peter Haas Fund.

The Gateway to Quality Project (http://gatewaytoquality.sfsu.edu/providers.aspx) has some preliminary data available on their website (see letters to providers). However because the evaluation has not been conducted on all San Francisco child care facilities and homes, it can not currently be used by the HDMT.  It is anticipated that by 2010, enough data will have been collected to be able to aggregate scores at the neighborhood level for all San Francisco neighborhoods.

For more information on child care environmental rating scales and defining quality child care environments, please visit the following pages (all accessed online on August 11, 2009):

• Gateway to Quality’s Research and Publication Page:                                                                        http://gatewaytoquality.sfsu.edu/research.aspx
• The Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute, UNC Chapel Hill developed a series of Environment Rating Scales for early childhood, infant/toddlers, family child care, and school-age care. http://www.fpg.unc.edu/~ecers/
• Bridge Housing's 2007 Child Care Handbook outlines a number of best practices for indoor and outdoor child care activity space design, as well as existing California design requirements.                                 http://www.bridgehousing.com/Default.aspx?DN=54fd0567-d75c-4c1c-b346-d82bfb8dc0ec
• The USDHHS Child Care Information and Technical Assistance (TA) Center is a national clearinghouse TA center that provides comprehensive child care information resources and TA services. http://nccic.acf.hhs.gov/index.cfm
• The Child Care Design Guide, by Anita Rui Olds.  Red Leaf Press,                                        http://www.redleafpress.org/productdetails.cfm?PC=46
• Planning for Child Care in California, by Kristen Anderson.  Solano Press Books, 2006.                      http://www.solano.com/processxml.asp?tid=CC&StyleSheet=title.xsl
• Child Care Design Guide, by US General Services Administration. 2003.                                        http://www.gsa.gov/Portal/gsa/ep/contentView.do?contentType=GSA_OVERVIEW&contentId=28295 

 

 

 

Why is this a Community Health Indicator?

In a multi-year study conducted by the National Institute for Child Health and Human Development in 10 different locations around the US, children in higher quality nonmaternal child care had somewhat better language and cognitive development during the first 4.5 years of life. They were also somewhat more cooperative than those who experienced lower quality care during the first 3 years of life.