Family child care programs’ participation in a supplemental quality improvement support within a Quality Rating and Improvement System

This mixed-methods study examined family child care educators’ participation in Stars Plus, a model that provided supplemental quality improvement supports within the context of a voluntary Quality Rating and Improvement System (QRIS), and its association with QRIS ratings. We report two connected studies: Study 1 used administrative data to examine participation patterns in the components of Stars Plus and QRIS outcomes; Study 2 used focus groups to explore educators’ perspectives on Stars Plus components. The quantitative analysis identified two clusters of participation: consistently higher participation and lower participation across Stars Plus supports. Focus group results showed that educators generally viewed all supports positively. Together, results can inform future development and implementation of relationship-based supports for quality improvement in family child care. Study findings suggest that family child care educators responded positively to QRIS supports designed with their unique context in mind, and that higher participation across supports was associated with reaching higher QRIS ratings.