The Arkansas Child and Adult Care Food Program: A Study of Factors Associated with Program Participation

Richard A. Huddleston
Yetunde A. Shobo
Arkansas Advocates for Children & Families

December 2002

The Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP) is a federal nutrition education and food assistance program. The program provides reimbursement for meals provided to children and adults in eligible child and adult care programs. A major goal of the program is to provide a nutritional safety net for low-income children. Unlike other social programs, such as food stamps, access to the CACP program by the target population is heavily dependent on the decisions of providers to apply and participate in the program.

In recent years, there have been numerous changes at the federal and state level in the CACFP program. For example, a two-level reimbursement system was introduced in 1996 to reflect the income of providers and the children they serve. This change may have been a disincentive for family day care homes serving children from middle-income families because they received a lower reimbursement rate for meals served to this population. Other factors, such as the strong economy and changes in welfare reform also may have impacted the demand for, and the availability of child care and eligible CACFP providers.

The objective of this report was to study factors affecting provider's participation rates in the CACFP program. To date, there has been little research, especially at the state and local level, on this issue. Using results from this study, the authors hoped to identify factors that may be impeding more providers from participating in the program.

This study was conducted using 2000 census data and state child care licensing and CACFP data provided by the Arkansas Department of Human Services, Division of Child Care and Early Childhood Education. The analysis was conducted using GIS mapping and statistical techniques to analyze provider participation patterns at the county and zip code level in Arkansas. To better assess provider decisions about whether to participate in the CACFP program, a mail survey was conducted of all licensed child care providers (including participating CACFP providers and non-participating providers).

In Arkansas, not all child care providers are participating in the program. Some providers are not eligible for the program, and are of lesser concern to this study. However, other providers are eligible for the program but are not participating in the program.

Administrative data obtained from the Arkansas Department of Human Services, Division of Child Care and Early Childhood Education licensing and nutrition database provided rich information for the study. For example, it shows that Family day care homes make up the greatest percentage of providers participating in CACFP (70%) even though they constitute less than half of all licensed child care programs. They are also are more likely to participate (68% do so). FDCH are licensed to serve a maximum of 16 children at a time.

Due to differences in eligibility and participation rules, child care centers make up a much smaller percentage of providers participating in CACFP. Child care centers have greater capacities, but constitute only 13% of all CACFP participants. They are also less likely to participate (only 11 percent do so).

There are significant intra-state geographic variations in the characteristics of child care programs that affect the need for child care, the availability of child care to meet this need, and the existence of child care centers that are eligible to participate in the CACFP program. There are unmet child care needs in every region of the state. However, there are also significant geographic variations in the degree and concentration of unmet child care needs. This affects the availability of child care programs that are eligible to participate in the CACFP program. In turn, this helps explain regional differences in the availability of providers to participate in the CACFP program. Among the findings:

• Family day care homes are concentrated in the Delta or southwest regions of the state. As a whole, the region has a lower child care capacity and thus fewer providers eligible to participate in CACFP.
• Child care centers are concentrated in the central part of the state. The central and northwestern regions also have a higher concentration of providers and higher child care capacity.
• The central and northwestern regions of the state are more heavily populated with children than the delta. Hence, these areas have greater child care needs.
• Low-income children make up a higher percentage of children in the delta region, thus suggesting a higher need for CACFP.
• The need for child care is greater in the central and northwestern parts of the state, but the delta region has greater needs for CACFP nutritional assistance because of the high density of low-income children.

A major finding from the survey is that many child care providers still do not know about the CACFP program, thus suggesting that more outreach is needed. In addition, participants that do know about the program do not know how to apply.

Many of the providers not participating in the CACFP program are not eligible to do so. Most of these tend to be for-profit programs serving few low-income children. The survey suggests that some eligible programs do not participate because they are overwhelmed by eligibility and participation rules.

Factors such as program type, program size, days and hours of operation, relationships with, or perception of the administering agency all affect providers' decisions to participate to varying degrees. Other factors include low-reimbursement rates and a high volume of paperwork required for the program as factors that current participants identified as being major concerns.

The findings from this study suggest that intervention strategies could be targeted to encourage greater participation by non-CACFP providers and prevent the future exit of current CACFP participants. This could result in better access to CACFP and more children being served by the program.