What are the characteristics of children ages birth to 12 years old in the state who are enrolled in a child care and early education (CCEE) program site?

Answering this question can provide insights into what groups of children are more or less likely to be in CCEE programs. This can be helpful for identifying underserved communities. To answer this question, identify children enrolled in CCEE program sites and analyze data about their characteristics in the aggregate.

Identify Child Level Characteristics of Interest

A full list of data elements that could be used to describe the characteristics of children ages 0-12 in the state can be found in the Child Level set of data elements in this document. The categories of elements related to children are: Identification; Demographics; Screening, Disability and Health; and Early Care and Education Experiences. While a multitude of descriptive analyses could be performed to better understand children under 12 in the state, examples of a few of these analyses are provided below. For each of the examples, further analyses could be conducted to understand patterns for subgroups of children. For example, additional analysis could examine trends for children by age (birth to 3, 3 to 5, 5 and older) using the data element Child Birth Date or by geographic region in the state using the element Child Address-County.

Example 1. How many children in the state are enrolled in an early care and education program? Use the data elements Program Participation Start Date and Program Participation Exit Date to determine how many children in the state are currently participating in an early care and education program. Children with a Start Date but no Exit Date are considered to be currently participating; children with an Exit Date and no new Start Date are not currently receiving care. Total the number of children with a Start Date but no Exit date for the denominator for other analyses related to children in ECE programs.

Example 2. What percentage of children in the state in early care and education programs are of Hispanic or Latino ethnicity? Using the data element Child Hispanic or Latino Ethnicity, select for those children (Child ID) with a “Yes” and divide by the total number of children in the state that are enrolled in an early care and education program.

Example 3. What percentage of children enrolled in an early care and education program in the state experience homelessness? Using the data element, Child Homeless Status, select for those children (Child ID) with a “Yes” and divide by the total number of children that are enrolled in early care and education programs. The Child Homeless Status data element refers to a child’s current status. This data element can be used for a point in time analysis or over multiple time periods to determine if a child has ever experienced homelessness or has experienced homelessness at a specific time point of interest in the past.

Example 4. What are the most common developmental delays among children in the state in early care and education programs? The data element, Primary Type of Disability, provides an indication of the number of children that have certain types of developmental delays. The options in this data element are not mutually exclusive; a child can have more than one type of delay. Any option that is indicated “Yes” means a child was identified as having that delay during a developmental evaluation. For each field, calculate the total number of children with that type of delay by totaling the number of “Yes” responses. The developmental delay with the most “Yes” responses is the most commonly reported developmental delay among children in the state. To calculate the percentage, divide each field by the total number of children in the state that are enrolled in early care and education programs.