About the CARE Progam

The needs of informal family child care providers present rich challenges and opportunities for service providers and policy makers in New York City. The Institute is piloting the CARE Program to design and test a more robust and responsive approach to the dynamic needs of informal providers and support the important role they play in the continuum of care for young children.

The Coaching and Responsive Engagement (CARE) program is an innovative professional learning and coaching model designed to build and enhance the capacity, knowledge and skills of informal home-based child care providers caring for children birth to 5 years old in New York City. Through this program, the Institute endeavors to more directly address the complex needs of informal providers by recognizing their unique motivations, acknowledging the barriers that limit them from accessing support, and addressing the needs that must be met before behavior change can happen. Through the Institute’s years of work on the Informal Family Child Care project, it has identified several core tenets that inform our approach to successfully engage and support providers in this and all of our programs. They include:

• Respect the individual provider and their role
• Recognize and engage providers on their own terms
• Provide tools, resources and support that makes providers work more fulfilling

This program is generously supported with a grant from the New York Community Trust. Read more about the C.A.R.E project on the Institute Blog