High-quality early care and education (ECE) provides a developmentally supportive environment for children in foster care that can help address early adversities, but recent studies have shown low levels of ECE participation among these children (Klein et al., 2016; Lee, 2020). To address this important issue, the Arkansas Office of Early Childhood (OEC) is collaborating with SRI International, the National Center for Children in Poverty, and the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. The partnership team is focused on learning about the supply, quality, and stability of ECE settings for children in foster care, as well as the facilitators and barriers to children in foster care accessing high-quality ECE.
This brief presents key findings from focus groups and interviews with resource parents (that is, foster parents), ECE center-based program directors, and ECE home-based providers about their experiences caring for children ages birth through 5 in foster care.