Lessons Learned from Home Visiting with Home-Based Child Care Providers

Caring for Quality and Partners in Family Child Care are home visiting programs designed to improve the quality of home-based child care. This article describes the experiences of two different home visitors to demonstrate how programs such as these can help providers improve the overall quality of care, increase children's development, and lead to trusting relationships between providers and home visitors. Home visiting was less successful at promoting long-term changes in health and safety practices. The authors discuss the challenges that arose in assessing and supporting social-emotional development in young children, and how providers' "readiness to change" relates to home visiting outcomes.