Curricula Considerations for Home Visiting for Home-Based Child Care Providers

Home-based child care (HBCC) providers care for over seven million children under age 5 in the United States, but many of these providers face barriers to accessing professional development opportunities outside of the home. This brief examines opportunities to support HBCC providers’ professional development through home visiting. As an intervention typically provided to economically disadvantaged families with children under school age, home visiting encompasses a range of supports provided in the family’s home by professionals such as social workers or nurses. Existing home visiting models focus on supporting caregivers—including biological parents, foster and adoptive parents, grandparents, or others who provide primary care for children in a home—in their interactions with their children. The in-home nature of the intervention has the potential to meet the training needs of HBCC providers in a convenient way. Adaptations to home visiting curricula, however, will need to address the unique challenges of working with multiple children across a range of ages and providing developmentally appropriate care and education.