Research & Evaluation

Research & Evaluation

C-IMPACT has a core expertise in research and experimental design and can provide program evaluation of grant funded programs.  Examples include:

Barriers, Supports Costs Associated with Family Child Care Participation in Pre-K Expansion Requirements Under the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future

Maryland has implemented a historic focus on early childhood with the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future. This legislation has created an unprecedented opportunity to expand preschool to all the state’s three- and four-year-old children through a mixed-delivery system across the continuum of public, center, and family child care (FCC) providers.

While the “Blueprint” brought many positive opportunities, including funding, for all early care and education professionals, it increased requirements for participation in Pre-K expansion grants. This has added strain to an already fragile system, with Maryland poised to potentially lose another 30% of its family FCC supply.

The impacts of this are multi-pronged – worsening workforce recovery across all industries as slow recovery is exacerbated by lack of access to affordable child care, with the loss of FCC creating supply issues for infant and toddler care. But it also adds to an already inequitable model, as FCC is more often used by rural families, low-income families, those who do not speak English or have a child with a developmental delay, so decreased supply impacts those individuals even harder. The sad reality is their need doesn’t go away, so instead we see increased reliance on illegal and unregulated child care arrangements that are far likelier to have incidents of abuse, neglect, and death. 

To understand the potential barriers in meeting the requirements under Blueprint, and potential unintended consequences from implementation, the Family Child Care Alliance of Maryland commissioned this study. Using a mixed method research design, a survey sample of 294 responses were collected in English and Spanish with 171 fully completed from FCC providers across the state, accompanied by 25 focus group interviews and 8 individual cost-profile constructed models.

Click the buttons below to find an Executive Brief and the full report,  laying out seven key  recommendations for stabilizing and strengthening family child care within a mixed-delivery PreK model. For a full review of background research, methodology, and analysis, please see the full report.

Maryland Early Care and Education Workforce Registry Implementation Report

Local collective impact coordinating entity, Montgomery Moving Forward (MMF), issued a statewide Call to Action Recommendations report in 2025 to address the early care and education (ECE) workforce crisis impacting Maryland. This issue has profound implications for the health and well-being of Maryland’s children, families, economy, and overall future from both the social-developmental outcomes of its citizens and financial growth perspective of its businesses.

MMF recognized these dual, interdependent outcomes, hinged on the strength of Maryland’s ECE workforce – the “workforce behind the workforce” across all other industries, and the critical drivers of high-quality practices that yield lifelong results for the state’s youngest learners. As such, the Call to Action recommended three key imperatives for adoption:

• Implementation of a Birth – 5 Career Lattice to guide ECE professionals along their career journeys; defining specific responsibilities and associated competencies and qualifications of requisite professional roles across the ECE continuum.
• Adoption of an ECE Workforce Registry to provide an integrated data-driven approach to matching professionals’ growth across the Career Lattice with specific recommended professional development and training; wrap-around supports and services that address the holistic needs of ECE professionals; simplified participation in the myriad of ECE initiatives and requirements in Maryland; and generated data that drives decision-making at the individual ECE educator, ECE program, jurisdiction, and overall state levels.
• Creation of a Statewide Cross-Sector Taskforce focused on the ECE workforce; helping to bridge the strategic goals and contributions of both the social-developmental and economic inputs and outcomes associated with strong ECE systems.

Following the publication of these recommendations, MMF has engaged in a series of deeper activities designed to bring each to fruition. Related to the adoption of an ECE Workforce Registry (“Registry”), MMF commissioned C-IMPACT to create a Registry “Implementation Report.”  Specifically, the Implementation Report answers the following:

• Recommended functions & features
• Estimated costs for start-up, annual maintenance, and funding strategies
• Identified connections to existing Maryland efforts, with suggested opportunities for alignment, and associated potential policy or legislative actions needed
• Suggested implementation operational model, inclusive of existing infrastructure
• Prescribed adoption timeline with key considered decision points

Click the button to access the full report