DOES TRAINING MAKE A DIFFERENCE TO QUALITY IN FAMILY CHILD-CARE

The purpose of this study was to determine which family child care pro viders seek training, which providers drop out of training, and the ef fects of training on the quality of care offered by providers. One-hun dred thirty family child care providers in three communities who enrol led in Family-to-Family training participated in the study. A comparis on group consisted of 112 regulated providers in those same communitie s who were not involved in the training program under investigation. E ach provider was observed for 3 hrs, was interviewed, and completed qu estionnaires. Providers in training were observed prior to training an d 6 months afterwards. Results revealed that providers who sought trai ning were very similar to typical regulated providers. Providers who d ropped out of training were less experienced and used fewer business a nd safety practices than providers who completed it. Training increase d global quality in two out of three sites, but did not affect process quality. Of 95 providers, 18 made observable (as opposed to statistic ally significant) improvements in quality following training, and 9 de creased in quality. These data are interpreted with respect to family child care training policies and practices.