Importance of early childhood education programs for children in foster care: Understanding foster parent perceptions of advantages and disadvantages

Abstract

Early childhood care and education (ECE) programs have a tremendous impact on a child's future. Previous research on ECE has been conducted examining impact of programs on children from low-income families but less has focused on children in foster care. The current study aims to understand foster parent perceptions of the benefits and disadvantages of ECE programs.

A purposive sampling method was used with foster parents (N=54) to gain an enriched understanding of their perceptions of ECE programs. Focus groups were conducted with foster parents and lasted one hour. All interviews were double transcribed and crosschecked to ensure accuracy. Further, all interviews were coded by two or more trained qualitative researchers to ensure interrater reliability using QSR N*Vivo 10 software.

Foster parents were able to describe a myriad of benefits of ECE programs including the broad benefits of education, support, and program characteristics. The disadvantages include program regulations and program characteristics. Foster parents also discussed that there is no disadvantage of ECE for children in foster care.

Results indicate that foster parents are aware of some of the benefits of ECE programs and also have opinions on the disadvantages of ECE programs. It is recommended that ECE providers and child welfare workers share the benefits of ECE programs with foster parents to increase ECE enrollment. It is also recommended that due to the many benefits of ECE programs for children in foster care, there is increased availability of ECE programs to increase enrollment and decrease children on waitlists for ECE services. Lastly, it is recommended that ECE providers and child welfare workers make efforts to decrease barriers of ECE engagement through addressing the known ECE disadvantages shared by foster parents in the current study.