Family child care educators’ experiences and decision-making related to serving children during COVID-19 and implications for supporting educators after the pandemic

The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted early care and education, and many early education programs paused their operations or closed permanently. This study focused on the experiences of family child care educators, how they made decisions about operating during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, the challenges they faced, and the supports that helped them. Using a semi-structured interview protocol, we interviewed 27 randomly selected family child care educators in a southern state. We used qualitative analysis to identify themes in educators’ responses. Results show that most educators based their operating decisions on the needs of the families they served. They faced common COVID-related challenges like finding supplies and implementing enhanced health and safety guidelines; however, participants primarily described these as manageable. We discuss implications for targeting future compensation and quality improvement efforts to support educators, help them operate safely, and ensure equitable early care and education access to families. Understanding family child care educators’ decisions can help support continued operations in the future, using lessons from the pandemic to help slow family child care decline and support educators in offering high-quality early care and education.