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>> Operator: Ladies and gentlemen thank you for standing by. Welcome to the CCDF Policies
Database Webinar.
During the presentation all participants will be in a listen-only mode. If you have a question
please press the 1, followed by the 4 on your telephone. If at any time during the conference
you need to reach an operator please press star, 0. As a reminder, this conference is
being recorded Thursday, March 21, 2013.
I would now like to turn the conference over to (Steve McLaine). Please go ahead sir.
>> Steve McLaine: Thank you and welcome everyone to the Webinar. I just want to go over some
brief logistics as far as asking questions.
You can ask questions at any time during the presentation and to do that we will be using
the chat box, which you see in the lower left corner of your screen. To submit a question
just type into the box and then hit send. We will acknowledge your question once it
is received and the presenters will respond to your question as soon as they are able.
At the end there will be a second period of questions and answers where we will offer
you the opportunity to ask additional questions that you may have discovered about the presentation.
And now I am going to turn the call over to Kathleen Dwyer.
>> Kathleen Dwyer: Thank you (Steve). Good afternoon everyone and welcome to today�s
orientation webinar on the Child Care and Development Fund, or CCDF Policies Database.
My name is Kathleen Dwyer. I am the Federal Project Officer at the Office of Planning,
Research and Evaluation in the Administration for Children and Families.
While many of you are probably already familiar with the project, and some of you may even
have investigated the Books of Tables or the data files, the purpose of today�s webinar
is to orient you as potential users of the database.
Over the past several years, the project has collected, coded and disseminated the State
and territory child care subsidy policies that are in effect using consistent methods
across places and over time.
One of the primary goals of the project is to provide data on CCDF policies to researchers
and other analysts in different forms to meet the needs of different users so that they
can answer the policy relevant research questions that are of most interest to them.
I hope that you will think about how you can use the database in your own work and ask
questions. We will also be asking you at the end of the webinar to think about what additional
training you might need in order to make best use of the database.
And today you will be hearing from Linda Giannarelli, a Senior Fellow at the Urban Institute and
the Project Director for the CCDF Policies Database. And joining her will be the two
project managers, Sarah Minton and Christin Durham.
And before getting started I just wanted to also thank Nikki Forry and Karen Tvedt, as
well as the staff at BLH Technologies for their help in planning the Webinar.
And now without further ado I will hand it over to Linda.
>> Linda Giannarelli: Hi welcome everyone. It is wonderful that you all have chosen to
join us this afternoon. We are very excited to talk to you about the database and how
you can use it in your work.
We know that there are quite a few folks from the State CCDF agencies who are on the call;
you folks are just instrumental to this project. It could not happen without your involvement
and help, so thank you so much for that. And we hope that you also find it to be useful
for yourselves.
And as Kathleen mentioned, the project is funded by ACF OPRE; and in addition to thanking
the folks in the States, I also want to really acknowledge the contributions of the project�s
terrific expert panel.
I won�t go through all of the names here, but there was a really important period at
the beginning of this project when we established what kind of information we were going to
try to obtain in the database; this was a very important part of the project involving
the expert panel; ACF staff in D.C. and in the regions; and the State and territory administrators.
There are three things that we want to do during the rest of our time this afternoon.
The first thing that we want to do is to give an overview of the database. I know that many
of you are already quite familiar with the project, but also from looking at the names,
I know that there are some participants today who may not be as familiar with it.
So we will spend a little bit of time on that overview, including, and I think this is particularly
important for researchers, the coding and verification process because, as we know as
researchers, how data are collected really impacts how we are able to use them and what
they mean.
Our big focus today will be on how you can use the CCDF Policies Database for your research.
We will look at the two main products that the project is releasing, the Book of Tables,
and then the full data files. We will actually spend most of the time on the full data files.
And last, but not least, we really want to answer your questions. We hope that during
the call, questions will come up for you about what is included in the database or how you
might be able to use it, and if a question comes up or we are not being clear about how
we are explaining something, please feel free to type your question into the chat box, so
that we can address that.
We also have time set aside towards the end of the webinar for answering any specific
questions related to how you can use the database in your research.
Before we get into the meat of the database I want to whet your appetite for hearing about
the database by just saying a few words about the kinds of research that might be able to
make use of the information in the CCDF Policies Database.
The kinds of projects most likely to need the information in this database are projects
that need very detailed information about how States are operating their CCDF programs�information
that goes beyond the very great information that is in the biennial State plans.
Another type of project that might need database information is a project that needs cross-time
information. A really important aspect of this project is that the information is being
collected on an ongoing basis. Projects that need information across all of the States
and the territories coded in a consistent way may also use the database.
Here are some examples of possible projects; again, we are trying to pique your curiosity
about what can be done with the database. Let�s say that you were going out on a site
visit as a researcher and you wanted to know in a particular State, or group of States,
what the CCDF policies were for TANF families in that State and how those policies might
differ from other States. In that case, you could find some of that information in the
Book of Tables and you could find even more detail in the underlying full database.
Another kind of question would be: are there any relationships between health and safety
requirements for unregulated providers and the number and characteristics of children
receiving in-home care under CCDF funding?
That is a kind of question where you might be able to get information on the first piece
about health and safety requirements from the database and then merge that information
with information from administrative data, from the 800 or 801 data.
Here are a few selected uses of the database to-date. A group of researchers, including
researchers at Oregon State University, SRCD, and Georgetown, have used information from
the database on child welfare cases and have merged that with State level administrative
data on child welfare.
Another important use to-date, which really relies on the very deep detail on eligibility
and co-payments in the database, is ASPE�s (an office in HHS) use of a microsimulation
model called TRIM, to estimate the numbers of children who are eligible for CCDF. TRIM
is maintained for ASPE by the Urban Institute. Prior to the CCDF database, we had to estimate
eligibility using the information that was available in the State plans, again very terrific
information, but not quite as detailed as we sometimes wanted. Now that we have the
database, those microsimulation estimates through TRIM are using the eligibility information
from the database, which is making them better estimates.
Finally a kind of overall bullet point is that the CCDF database has been used multiple
times since the data have first been available to answer policy questions that have come
up from ACF and from State administrators.
So we have already touched on most of these main points about the database itself. It
has very detailed information on CCDF policies; it has information on all 50 States, D.C.;
and something that is not always done, but I think is a terrific aspect of this project,
is that it also has information on the CCDF programs in the territories and outlying areas;
and the database captures changes across time.
Now that last point is particularly important. I have said a couple of times that we are
going beyond the information that is in the State plans. The data are collected mainly
from the State�s policy manuals�these may be called caseworker manuals--whatever
the very detailed documents are that staff in the States use as they work with families.
Here is a representation of the process that the project goes through. Collecting materials,
which is that first panel, is really an ongoing process. We have developed methods that work,
different methods for different States, in order to keep up with changes in the policy
materials, whether that is by getting paper materials in the mail, or whether that is
by periodically checking Web sites, or some other method.
The bulk of the coding occurs over about a three-month period starting in the summer.
We review all of those policy materials and update the information in the underlying database.
After we have done that update, we prepare a set of about 40 tables that, believe it
or not, is not enough to cover all of the information in the database. It does touch
on what we, and the expert panel and others, think are the most important 40 tables worth
of information, or at least most important for the most people.
Following the preparation of those tables comes what is probably the most important
part of the process, getting the information verified. We send those tables out to our
partners in the States, many of you, again, are on this call today and we thank you.
Our State partners review that information and tell us where we have gone astray. Sometimes
we have simply misinterpreted something, sometimes we have missed an update to a policy, but
in any case we work with our State partners to resolve any issues that come up so that
the data can be as clean, as accurate as we can possibly make it.
And then we get to the exciting point of releasing the data. As of this point, the most recent
data that have been released are through October 2011, and the information that goes through
October 2012 is currently in the verification stage.
Now I have spoken a couple of times about the level of detail that is in the database,
but I have not said too much about exactly what that is. The information in the database
falls into about five main areas, eligibility requirements; application and reporting information;
information on priority and waiting lists; copayments or family payments (different terms
are used in different States); and reimbursement rates and provider policies.
And underneath each of those areas, is a great wealth of information and to hear just a little
bit about that information I am going to pass it to Christin Durham, one of the project�s
co-managers.
>> Christin Durham: Hello everyone. Some of this information will be pretty familiar to
some of you, especially those of you working on verification of the tables with us, so
I will try to move through things pretty quickly so we can get around to Sarah showing you
how to use the data files. Here we go.
Okay so eligibility policies, some of the variables included under eligibility include
age limits for children receiving subsidy, the types of activities that are approved
for eligibility, defining who is included in the family; and lots of variables related
to income as far as what is counted and income limit cutoffs for eligibility, as well as
assets tests.
Here we have a map highlighting just one particular eligibility variable related to job search.
As you can see there is variety among the States of who approves job search for eligibility
and who does not.
The yellow States here, Do not approve job search as an eligible activity for childcare.
The green States, Do approve job search, but only once you are eligible under another activity.
The blue States, Allow job search for initial and continuing eligibility.
And again I am going to move through these quickly, but this slideshow will be available
either on the Research Connections Web site or elsewhere so you can take a longer look
at our lovely maps if you so desire.
This chart shows a little more detail about the types of income that are included when
determining family income for eligibility. As you can see, the majority of States do
include child support, roughly half the States include TANF, SSI income, more than half do
include SSDI income, and very few States include EITC, tax refunds or foster care income.
Okay moving on from eligibility to application and reporting policies. Under this broad heading,
we have things such as the procedures for applying for subsidies, the types of information
that must be verified during application, requirements for reporting changes, if families
receiving different types of benefits or services are exempt from redetermination, and also
the terms of authorization or the things that care is authorized for.
This chart gives some detail about the types of information required to be verified during
application. As you can see, all of the States do require families to verify their income.
The majority require information to verify employment; fewer than half require that the
household composition (everyone in the household) be verified.
This map shows a little bit more information about redetermination periods or the length
of the eligibility period. You can see about half of the States have 6 month eligibility
periods and the other half have 12 months, with a couple of States in between that are
at 8 months.
Okay the next broad heading is priority and waiting list policies. Some States do give
priority to subgroups of families and States may opt to use waiting lists at times when
funding is not available for all families seeking subsidies.
This chart shows a little bit more detail about priority policies among the States.
As you can see, about half of the States give some sort of priority to families with children
with special needs; very low income families (income substantially lower than the cutoff
for child care subsidies); transitional child care (families transitioning out of TANF);
also children under child protective services. And then a little bit fewer of the States
also give priority to children in foster care.
This map shows a little more detail about waiting lists. As you can see over half of
the States are using waiting lists for families who are seeking a child care subsidy when
funding is not available to serve all families.
Co-payment policies, or family fees: here we capture a lot of information about co-payments
in the database including co-payment amounts, the different thresholds for when you move
from one co-payment amount up to the next; exemptions from co-payment for particular
families; variables related to co-payment administration; how co-payments are calculated;
and various adjustments to co-payments for things such as multiple children in care.
This chart shows exemptions from co-payment. You can see that a lot of States do give some
TANF families exemptions from co-payment, also families with children in CPS or foster
care, and then families with very low income.
And this is just sort of a snapshot look at co-payments for a family of 3 at $15,000 in
annual earnings. We give a range of co-payment amounts starting with zero, so for the yellow
States, it is a zero co-payment for a three-person family at that income level and then it goes
up from there.
The final category includes reimbursement rates and other provider policies. Reimbursement
rates, as many of you are familiar with, are the amounts that the State will pay to providers
who are providing care under the subsidies. We also capture information about tiered reimbursement
rates.
Tiered reimbursement involves States with some sort of increased quality component for
their child care programs and a higher reimbursement rate for quality components. And we also capture
information for legally unregulated or informal providers, such as background checks, training
requirements and age requirements.
This is another snapshot showing center reimbursement rates for toddlers. Again we give a range
of reimbursement rates with yellow being the lowest and dark blue, being the highest. And
here we have a snapshot of States that do employ some sort of tiered reimbursement where
higher reimbursements are given to providers with improved quality components. The yellow
States, Do not have tiered reimbursement. And the green States, Do.
And now I am going to hand things over to Sarah who is going to get into the exciting
information about how you can actually use the Book of Tables, as well as the detailed
data files for your research projects.
>> Sarah Minton: All right thank you Christin. Before I dive in, does anybody have any questions
about anything we have already covered? Feel free to enter those in the chat box and we
can try to address them as we go. And if you have questions along the way as I am walking
through the data files, feel free to enter those as well, and we will try to address
them as we go.
So as Christin and Linda said, we have two products, the Book of Tables and the detailed
data files and depending on your needs you would use one or the other.
But the first thing we will talk about is the Book of Tables. The Book of Tables shows
selected policies from the database for October 1, of each year. The latest Book of Tables,
as Linda noted, shows the policies through October 1, 2011. And it also includes an appendix
that has a complete set of tables for October 1, 2010, so you can see those policies as
well.
The Book of Tables is available from OPRE�s Web page, but you can also access this information
in Excel format if that would be useful for your research. So all of the columns from
the tables are entered into an Excel file and are posted online at Research Connections.
The next few slides are just examples from the Book of Tables, so you can see how they
are structured. Each table shows several variables from the database and we show this information
across all of the States. And in addition to what you see in the tables, there are a
lot of footnotes that go along with it that give additional details that might be useful.
So we cover everything from eligibility policies to co-payment calculations and we have picked
some selected family sizes and we show amounts for those families. And we also show a number
of provider policies, including more detailed information on the reimbursement rates across
States.
So as I noted, this information is available from OPRE�s Web site. You can access the
most recent book of tables there. There is also a copy of the 2009 Book of Tables if
you want to see policies going a little further back.
When deciding if you are going to use the Book of Tables, some things to think about,
would it be useful to have this information for a single point in time? So if October
1 of each year will serve your needs, then you can go to the Book of Tables and pretty
quickly pull the information.
If you just want to see the policies across States and you do not need a lot of sub-State
information then you can get that in the Book of Tables. And if the key variables we have
selected for the tables include the information that you need, then you can pull that from
the Book of Tables.
If you need additional detail though, you would go to the full data files. And these
files contain all of the information from the database, so every variable we have in
the database would be here.
They capture the changes over time, so if you want to see how policies have changed
in the State over the years, then you could see that here. And the data are available
in many different formats, so whatever program you are using you can probably find that on
Research Connections. We are going to look a little more at the Excel files today, but
you could also download these from Research Connections as SAS or STATA files as well,
and in a number of other formats.
So like I said, these are available from Research Connections. If you go out to their site and
look for the CCDF Policies Database then you will be able to find the data files there.
And in just a minute I will walk through the steps of that in a little more detail. But
the most recent data files will be the ones that show 2011 in the title. And later this
year we will be putting out the set that go through 2012.
So when the Book of Tables won�t serve your needs and you want to go to the database files,
we follow a number of steps in using these files. The first thing we do is we go through
and see are the variables there that we need? Does this have the information I need?
If so, then we would look at those variables more carefully and see how they are coded.
We would also understand how the records are set up, and I will talk a little bit more
about records and what those mean in a minute, but how they are structured and why there
might be more than one record for a State. We also want to understand when there are
missing data values and what that means and then finally we download and use the data
files.
So the first thing we would want to do in using these is look at the documentation that
is available on Research Connections. And the documentation that shows all of the information
for the variables is the User�s Guide.
This has information on the variable names, the definitions, coding options and also the
additional coding notes that our coders use when they pull this information out from the
State policy manuals. So there is a lot of detail there.
The User Guide is structured so that it is set up by category of information; so you
would go to a section that would show you information about eligibility, or about co-payment
policies. We will click through that in just a second so you can see a little more detail.
And this is just an example: you can see the category we have pulled is Priority Policies;
initially it has a little bit of information about the category and then it goes into more
detail about the actual variables within that category.
And on the left hand side of the table, you will see the variable name and then the variable
definition. We then go into more detail about how the variable is actually coded. So here
we are looking at a variable we have in the database of whether co-payments are waived
for families with income below 100% of the poverty guidelines.
So here we see that under Options we have shown the different codes. If you look at
this in the data files, a code of zero would mean N/A (not applicable), a code of one would
mean yes, and so on. The coding notes are what our coders use when they are collecting
this information.
And you can see that for this one you might have a code of no when only a subset of people
below the poverty guidelines are exempt. So in that case not everybody below 100% is exempt,
but we do capture that additional information in a notes field, so you still get that additional
information from the database.
For the data files, we include all of the information in the database through October
1, 2011, and starting from when we began collecting policies. And you will see out on Research
Connections there are a few versions of this. There is the 2009 file and then the 2011 file.
For your research, it is best to go to the most recent file because that will include
any corrections that the States have notified us about. And they include every category
of information in all of the variables and they also include additional information on
what we call our Header Variables, which I will go into more detail about understanding
those, but those are the variables that kind of identify what State or county the policies
apply to.
And today we are going to look at these by looking at the Excel files. The way those
are set up is there is one worksheet for each policy category and then we have additional
worksheets on these Header Variables.
So now I am going to go into the data files so that you can see how they are set up. This
is the Excel file I have downloaded from Research Connections; really quickly I can walk through
how we got to this.
If you go out to the Research Connections Web page and you search for the projects using
the CCDF Policies Database you will find this file. And you can see there is a lot of information
on it, a lot of descriptive information, but then you will also see over here on the left
hand side is where you can download the data.
You can download all of the files, but this takes a little longer, so we tend to go through
the option of downloading select files. Once you click on that, it is going to bring you
to this page that shows you all of the datasets that we have.
The first thing you will see is our documentation, which is where you can get to the User�s
Guide that I talked about. And then it is set up so that each category has its own set
of files, so each policy category is here.
We also noted that Research Connections keeps information on the Book of Tables and if you
scroll down to the bottom you will see that there are files for each year�s tables.
So you can access that information there if you want.
So using the Excel files is a little different than some of the other data file structures.
You will see there is not actually an option that says Excel. It says SAS, SPSS data, but
there is no Excel option.
So you are going to go through the Other option, agree to their user agreement, and you will
see this file come up. And if you click on this folder, you are going to click again
within the subfolder here. And let us see if I can get that to open. And within that,
you will see a copy of the code books here, but you will also see the Excel file is here.
Unlike the other files, you can go through any category and it will give you the entire
set of Excel files. So this one document is repeated throughout, but you only need to
access it through one category.
So once I click on that, I am brought to our Excel file. And you can see that each worksheet
within the file is a different category of information, and at the end of the file, we
have some additional sheets that give you information on what some of the codes mean.
So here we see what some of the State codes mean.
I am going to walk through a few examples so that you can see what we mean by Header
Variables and what we mean by Records of the Database. And we will just pick a category.
I am going to go back to the front and we will go to the category on co-pay adjustments
here.
And you can see that within this category, there are several columns. Each column is
a variable and each row is what we call our record. So these records are for each State
and sometimes there are multiple records for a State.
So the Header Variables are these first set of columns here. These tell you what all of
the variables are, what State they apply to, what county, what period of time they were
in effect; this tells you just about the record itself. And then all of the columns that follow
are going to be all of the variables within that category.
And you will see for each variable, we have the variable listed, but then we have a field
that follows that and it is a notes field. So we have coded the variable, but sometimes
in a State there might be additional information we think would be helpful to know and that
would be listed in the notes field.
So for the Header Variables we have State, County, Program, Family Group, and this might
be subgroups of families. If there are some policies that apply to different groups--like
co-payments for families with special needs children and different co-payments for families
who do not have children with special needs--you might see variation there.
The Provider Type and Provider Subtype variables are more for categories that apply to provider
policies. So for reimbursement rates we might code a set of rates that apply to center providers,
we might code a set that applies to in-home providers. And so in those Provider Type and
Subtypes you would see this information. And the User�s Guide goes through each of the
Header Variables and really explains in detail what they capture and how they are coded.
The next two fields are the beginning and end date fields and these are the fields that
let you know when these policies were in effect. So we can see that for this first record,
this is-State 1 is Alabama, that the policies in this record are in effect from 2008 to-and
then you see there is this interesting code that does not really convey a date, 9999/12/31
is our kind of internal way of saying this policy is still in effect.
So we know that these policies have been in effect since 2008 and they are still in effect
through our current coding, which is through the summer or early fall of each year.
You can see, if we go down to the next State, the policies were in effect from 2002 to 2010,
and then in November 2010 something was changed, and so a new record was coded.
So I am going to scroll down and we are going to look at Texas, which I have highlighted
here, so that we can talk about the difference in different records and also these majority
date fields that we use.
So you can see for Texas here, which is State Code 48, we have 3 different records. If we
had looked up the code for counties, we would see that this 44 means all counties, so we
have 1 record that applies to the entire State, so the variables that are coded here are in
effect throughout the entire State.
We then have 2 records that you see have a different code for county, 192. And if we
looked that up in the codes, we would see that that is the code for the Gulf Coast region
of Texas. And so these policies are sub-State policies that apply only to the Gulf Coast
region.
And you can see that we have 2 records here for Gulf Coast and that is because in 2008
something was updated in this record. I think it is important to note that the way this
works is if one policy in the entire category changes then we code a new record.
So it might be that only one thing changed, in which case we carry over the coding for
all of the other variables, and then you will only see that change in that one variable.
So it does not mean that every variable in the category changed in 2008, it may just
be that 1 or 2 did.
Now the majority dates are a little trickier. We use this internally and you can also use
it for identifying records for your research, but these let us know which record applies
to the majority of the State.
So in this case we have coded dates that match our date fields and we know that this is the
record that applies to the most people in the State. We then used this code of all eights
to kind of let us know this is a record that applies to some sub-State area or some subgroup
and not to the majority of the people in the State.
So if you were doing your research and you wanted to just identify one set of policies
for each State that were in effect, say, January 1, 2010, then you could use these majority
date fields to do that. So that is just a little bit on different records.
And now I think we have covered a lot of the basics here, so we will go through a few examples
to make this a little more concrete for your use. The first thing we want to look at is
the questions Linda presented early on.
So the first question we asked was, �What were the TANF policies in the State prior
to a site visit.� And then taking that further, �How do those policies vary across States?�
And so for our example, we will look at South Carolina. We have picked a random State here,
but let us say we are going on a site visit to South Carolina. The first thing we are
going to want to see is, does the database contain the information that I need for my
site visit?
So we would come into the User�s Guide, which is this PDF that Research Connections
has posted, and we could go down and see there is a little bit of information about the project
and the data files, but we could go down and look at the actual Code Book section and there
is a Table of Contents here where we could see information about how everything is coded
and the different Header Variables and all of that, but also the categories that are
captured in the database.
So let us say that we want to know, for families receiving TANF, do they have their co-payments
waived for the childcare subsidy program? And we see that we have this category, Co-Payment
Exemptions. So if I click on that, it is going to take me down to that category of information
and I can see there is a little bit of detail here on the category and then I can look at
the specific variables to see if the information I am interested in is captured here.
And I see that, yes there is a variable for co-payment exemptions for families receiving
TANF. And I can see how the variable is coded, what the different values are going to mean
in the data files, and then some additional notes on how this is coded.
So in this case a code of N/A means that TANF families are not eligible under the primary
subsidy program, so they (TANF families) might be getting their funding from a different
program that we are not capturing here, in which case the coders have been instructed
to code this N/A and then put a note that explains that policy.
So once I see that the information I want is in the database, I go out to the data files
and look at the file to see exactly how it is set up and what information we can find.
So I am going to just click over to Co-Pay Exempt, which is the category we are interested
in, and if I scroll down and I have looked up my State codes, I know that 45 is South
Carolina. And we can see that in this case there are two records and if I look across
I see the reason for that is that the policies were updated, so in October 2009 something
in this category changed.
Now the specific variable I am interested in is Co-Payment TANF Exemptions here and
I can see that that actually did not change over time, so their policy has been in effect
since 2009 and there was not a change in October.
One thing to note is that the variables are in order from the way they are listed in the coding guides, so there
are actually some more in here that I have hidden so we can easily look at the ones we
are interested in.
But if you are looking for something, you can look in the Coding Guide and see where
it should be in the list here. And then if you wanted to take that further then you could
look at all of these and see, �Okay here�s how these vary across States.�
You can see there is some variation in a few States for the county. So this code here,
36, is for New York and we have actually coded a policy for the entire State and we have
also coded a set of policies that apply to New York City.
So we can see how some of these vary�for specific variables, how they vary across States;
also some of the interesting notes we have captured.
At this point you could then download this information, and you could put it into a table
format or other format. We have created the maps that Christin showed you earlier. You
can download the information and use it in whatever way you need to.
The next example we are going to look at in a little more detail is the question about
health and safety requirements and how they affect the characteristics and number of children
receiving in-home care.
So again we would go out to our Coding Guide and find a relevant category. So if I looked
through the categories of information, I see that we actually have a whole category on
health and safety requirements.
So if I click on that, it takes me out to the category. I see a little bit of information
about what types of providers this category applies to and then I can scroll down and
see that we actually have quite a few variables that would help us with this question, from
the checklist requirements, to providers who might be exempt from those requirements, and
additional detail about inspection policies.
So again we can see that this is how the variable is defined, the variable name that we are
going to be looking for in the data file, and we can also see how exactly this variable
is coded.
So if we come back out to the data files, scroll through and we find the one that is
health and safety, we can see we have our different header records here and here is
the first variable. So this variable also has a few notes with it for different States
and we would want to look at that.
One thing to note are the missing values, so you can see that is a code of 92, Not in
Manual. And that means that the policy documents we used did not go into this level of detail
and so we were not able to collect this information. So you will see that in some States for some
variables.
If the variables are in the Book of Tables, we have tried to address that during verification
and the States have been extremely helpful about providing that information and helping
us fill in the missing values. But for variables that are not in the Book of Tables, we have
not always addressed those or been able to collect the missing values.
So if I come back out here, one thing to note about this category, provider policies. We
can see that in addition to some of the variation in dates, and maybe some sub-State variation,
we also see variation in our provider categories.
So if we looked at what the Provider Type 2 means, we would see that that means family
child care homes. And so these are the policies in this record. These policies apply to children
receiving care in a family child care home setting.
We then see that in this State there is also a Code 3, which is for in-home providers,
and so there is a different set of policies that apply to in-home providers in this State.
So we do try to capture those differences where we can.
So for this research question, hypothetical question, once you looked at the data and
realized, �Okay maybe they do have what I need and we want to pull this down.� Then
you would pull this data down and link it with whatever data files you want to link
it with, so maybe 801 data to look at the characteristics of the children receiving
in-home care.
So I am going to go back to the slideshow now and I am going to turn it over to Linda,
who is going to talk a little bit about linking data files.
>> Linda Giannarelli: Thank you very much Sarah. That was amazing. Just one brief comment
about the Coding Guide.
Sarah and Christin have done an amazing job of keeping that document continually updated
and improved. So whenever we have an internal question about, �Gee in this sort of gray
area, how should we actually code this particular concept in this situation that has never come
up before?� When we reach a decision about what we think is the best approach, we do
try to reflect that in the Coding Guide.
So if you have questions about how a distinction is made between one categorical value and
another in what seems to be a gray area, hopefully the guide will address that.
And as you are using the information, if you feel like there is a gray area that we have
not addressed, please get in touch with us and we will answer it and try to improve it
for the next round.
>> Christin Durham: Hi, we have a great question from (Lee Kreader). �Do you define in-home
as the child�s home or is it meant to convey legally licensed exempt home-based care?�
>> Sarah Minton: Good question. So for this, we tend to define in-home as in the child�s
home and that is the information you are going to see presented in the Book of Tables. And
these are usually legally licensed-exempt providers. We do, in the data files, capture
a little more detail.
So if a State distinguishes in-home care between in the child�s home or in the provider�s
home, then we will capture some additional detail on that, but in general we are defining
in-home as care in the child�s home. I hope that answers your question, if not feel free
to type more.
>> Linda Giannarelli: Thank you Christin and Sarah. Okay turning back to linking data for
a second. As we mentioned at the beginning of the presentation, one of the ways that
you might use the information in the Policies Database is not just by itself, but to link
it, or attach it, to your analysis file from another source, which might be, for instance,
801 data records; it could be a (SIPP) analysis file that you are working with and you want
to attach to the terrific information about child care in the (SIPP) data, you might want
to attach some variables describing how CCDF policies work in that child�s State.
You could link by State; you could link by sub-State area, in some cases; you could link
by characteristics of the family or arrangement. We are not going to walk through here exactly
how you would do data linking, except to say that the standard software packages--SAS,
SPSS, whatever package you are using--would have a method for merging in variables from
another source based on whatever your linking variables are. That is something that we could
talk about further or communicate with you further about through e-mail after the session.
Here is just another plug for Research Connections, which is such an amazing resource. The 801
data are just one of the many data files that are available from Research Connections.
I think we have covered a pretty good overview of the database content, and heard from Christin
about some of the specifics in the file, and we have shown you just some of the variation
across State, and gotten a terrific overview from Sarah on how to use the data.
At this point, we really want to primarily turn it over to answering your specific questions.
Kathleen would you like to say anything before we start diving into the Q&A?
>> Kathleen Dwyer: I just want to thank you all for presenting and I think we are going
to get good questions, so I want to get to those right away. But just as a reminder,
we would love to hear the questions that you have in terms of using the database in your
own work and at the end of the webinar we will have contact information.
If you would contact us and let us know what additional training you think might be necessary
we would really appreciate hearing from you. So I do not want to delay us any further and
will hand it back over to you all.
>> Linda Giannarelli: Thank you very much Kathleen. So I see we already have some questions
and we are going to take them one at a time, various members of the team here.
>> Christin Durham: I am going to do the easy job or reading the questions. We have a great
question about our data sources. The question is: �Can you talk a little bit more about
your data sources, specifically what comes from the CCDF State Plans and from the State
policies manuals and how do these sources differ?�
>> Sarah Minton: Well most of what we collect at this point comes directly from the State
policy manuals, so these are the caseworker manuals that caseworkers are using, plus some
additional documentation they provide us during the verification process.
We try to keep our collection of these documents up to date, so that we can actually track
when the policies change over time. So we would know, for example, a policy change happened
on August 2; that date is in the database.
We do collect a little bit of information from the CCDF plans that are submitted every
two years to ACF; these are the plans that the States prepare that provide information
about how their policies work.
We collect some information from the Plans that is not necessarily easily available from
the caseworker manuals, things that maybe do not affect the day-to-day operations of
the program and what the caseworkers are dealing with. This might be information on when the
market rate survey is completed, or information on quality implementation. So most of what
we collect is from the policy manuals, but we do collect just a little bit of supplemental
information from the plans.
>> Linda Giannarelli: I should also add that we review the information in the plans, including
the attachments for the plans, and that provides a good additional check on the information
that we are seeing in the policy manuals.
This also gives us an opportunity to mention another general point. I think Kathleen alluded
to this at the very beginning of the call. The database captures the policies that have
been put into place and not often, but sometimes, there may be policies mentioned in plans before
the point when they are actually implemented.
The database is intended to capture things with the date that the policy is actually
implemented on the ground, rather than the date at which the policy is planned.
>> Christin Durham: Okay great we have another great question. It says: �The public documentation
on Research Connections looks like a separate file for each category. Is that the best way
to access it? The file names are not intuitive.�
>> Sarah Minton: So in the documentation on Research Connections, there are some things
that are repeated throughout. At the top of the page when you get to the datasets, they
have posted the User Guide, and that is going to have all of the information for all of
the categories. You could also select it from the individual categories, but it is not necessary
to open up the different ones. It is going to be the same information.
As for the files themselves, whichever category you click on, it is going to be the complete
Excel file. But most of the information, aside from that, is going to be category specific.
If you feel like we should provide a little more detail on any of these questions, feel
free to say so.
>> Christin Durham: Okay great. Another question about documents: What summary documents from
the CCDF Policies Database tables have been produced and what else is in the works?�
>> Sarah Minton: That is a good question. So right now we have just the reports we put
out, the Book of Tables for each year and then the data files. We also are working with
our internal team and our project officer to have a project page up in the near future
that will have some information on different presentations that have been given that summarize
some of the key policies, additional maps and things like that, if you are interested
in those. And also at that point, there may be some links to updated data as that comes
out.
>> Linda Giannarelli: Sarah and Christin have done some nice blog posts that are up on the
Urban Institute Web site and that will also be on the Project Web page.
Since there is a brief lull in the questions, I will say that if you have any questions
or need additional details on any particular categories of information we would be happy
to answer those questions. This includes if you are wondering what we do or do not capture
in a particular area; if you would like any additional information on the process for
coding or verifying the data; or any additional information on how to find or download the
data.
>> Christin Durham: We just had a comment come in about just reiterating that the Book
of Tables does actually include a lot of text summary data that accompanies the tables.
All of you are doing wonderful work helping us verify the information. You just see the
tables, but there is a lot of explanatory information that goes along with the tables
themselves.
And we have had a couple of more questions come in. �How would you link data by family
characteristics? Can you provide an example of this?�
>> Linda Giannarelli: That is a great question. Let us say that you were trying to link policy
data to your--we will pick on SIPP again--link policy data to your SIPP analysis file. Some
of the families in your SIPP analysis file might be TANF recipients, some might not be
TANF recipients, so that is just an example of a characteristic where depending on whether
the family was a TANF recipient or not that would affect the policy information regarding,
for instance, potential co-payment.
So if one of the variables that you wanted as part of your analysis was �what is the
potential co-payment for this family�, or �would this family potentially have to pay
any co-payment�, that would vary not only by State, but also by whether or not the family
was a TANF family.
>> Christin Durham: Okay another question related to linking. �Regarding linking data,
suppose in the other data set we only know the State, but not the sub-State. Do you feel
merging by State only is still useful even if not entirely accurate?�
>> Linda Giannarelli: That is another terrific question. I think it is still useful because
for many survey data files there is not complete sub-State information. This also is a good
chance for me to mention that while the project tries to include as much sub-State information
as we can we do not have completely complete sub-State information. We code the sub-State
information when we have it and when it does not require collecting individual manuals
or policy documents from every one of, you know, 50 counties in a State.
Let me give you a specific example. Among the things that are more common to vary across
a State are the co-payments or family payments. If the State level documents say, �Okay
in this region, in these counties in the State, these are what the family payments are---this
is what the family payment table looks like--In these counties of the State this is what the
family payments are.�
Then we will code all of that information using different codes, as Sarah pointed out,
for the different areas of the State. On the other hand, if that information on family
payments or on reimbursement rates was not available entirely from the State documents,
if it required that we communicate with each one of 50 counties in order to obtain that
information, we do not have the resources to do that under the project.
So in that case we would have coded the specific information for one specific area of the State,
but we would not be able to give exhaustive information on the information in every area
of the State.
>> Christin Durham: Go ahead.
>> Linda Giannarelli: So I was actually going to pass back to Christin or Sarah to add anything
that they think I explained poorly.
>> Christin Durham: I was just going to explain that when we need to go sub-State, if you
will, we generally go for the county or region that is the most populous so it has the most
child care cases in the State, or it�s the most populous region. So that is how we come
up with that.
And then a lot of times, you know, there will just be some policies that are sub-State,
but there is a lot of overall information that applies to the whole State, so only State
level data would really work. Please let us know if you want some more information about
sub-State versus State and any linking issues with that.
Another question: �Can you repeat what you said about finding out about changes in policies
over time? Do I just use the most recent data file or do I need to use bot the 2008 and
2011 files, for example?�
>> Sarah Minton: So for that, for the data files, you can go out to Research Connections
and just pull the most recent data file, which will be the 2011 data file. And then, as we
said, at the end of this year there will be a file for 2012. And the 2011 file is going
to contain all information over time since we started coding the policies. So you can
just use that one file and be able to see how the policies changed.
We have left the older files up with Research Connections in case somebody used those for
their original research and wanted to go back in and look at anything, but if you are doing
new research or updating your research you can go to the most recent file.
>> Christin Durham: Okay and then we have a question; �How far back in time does the
data go?� And I will answer that and say that we have information going back to at
least October 1, 2009, which is our first round of verification, for those of you who
remember back to the October 1, 2009, Book of Tables. But depending on the State and
what was available I think we have things going back as far as 2001 and a lot of States
going back to 2008, 2007.
A question: �At the CCPRC meeting, we heard from State administrators that it is helpful
for them in interpreting the applicability of research findings to their States if researchers
provide some context about the State. Given your experience with States and these data
do you have suggestions on which CCDF policy indicators should be reported consistently
by researchers?�
>> Linda Giannarelli: That is an interesting question. Ten different things come to mind.
If I had to pick three or four as far as overall State context, I would probably say the eligibility
limit would be one; another might be a measure related to family payments; and another might
be related to provider reimbursement rates.
But that is an excellent question. I do think that context piece is important. The specific
items of context that are important might relate to--might depend on what the research
is.
>> Christin Durham: Okay I do not think we have any new questions. Any questions?
>> Linda Giannarelli: I will throw in one more thing while you all are pondering and
thinking of additional questions. And that is regarding the verification. As we talked
about the tables in the Book of Tables go out to our partners in the States and territories.
That means we do not send, or have not currently been sending, the entire Excel files and asking
people to review every single variable in the entire database, which includes many hundreds
of variables.
It means that there is more missing data in the variables that are not included in the
Book of Tables than in the information in the Book of Tables. So if your interest is
in a piece of information that so far has not made the cut to be in the Book of Tables,
you might find more cases in the database where there is missing data.
That is something we might try to address more going forward, but at this point that
is where we are. So if you are interested in a variable that would be one thing that
you would want to look at if it is coming from the underlying data files and is not
something that is in the Book of Tables.
>> Christin Durham: Okay this question came in a while back: What data is included if
States change policies mid-year?� We touched on this some, but just to make sure everyone
is clear, so States change their policies throughout the year, some States make lots
of changes throughout the year.
So we try to capture every single one of those policy changes and when we enter this information
into the database we give it the effective date that the policy went into effect. So
no matter what time of year it changes, even if we are doing the majority of our update
coding over the summer, we code it with the effective date of when the policy was issued.
>> Linda Giannarelli: Let me give you one other thing to think about. We are happy to
answer any additional questions that come up over the next couple of minutes, but one
other thing for you all to be thinking about is what this session did not cover. What did
we go over too quickly and you would want more information about it? What would really
help you make the best use of the information?
So we would be happy to take those suggestions and our Project Officer, Kathleen Dwyer, you
could also send those suggestions to her. Here is our contact information.
There are the three names for the Urban Institute staff and rather than trying to remember three
different e-mail addresses, you can e-mail us all at that project e-mail address and
we will all three see it. And also you have Kathleen�s name there and her e-mail address.
So ACF has really been terrific about this project, really wants the data to get as much
use as possible and is interested in finding out what you need in the research and policy
communities to make the best use of it.
I am going to click back to the questions page there. Kathleen, is there anything that
you would like to either add or ask?
>> Kathleen Dwyer: No thanks, I think you covered everything and I just-I would thank
you again. Thanks to Linda, and Sarah, and Christin and everyone for joining us for this
orientation. It does seem like the questions are slowing down.
But just to reiterate what Linda said, we really do encourage you to contact us and
let us know what additional training that you might need. I also hope that you will,
hop right on in the next few minutes and check the database out. You can get on to Research
Connections and get right into the data.
So I hope that this was a helpful Webinar for you and I thank you and look forward to
hearing from everyone.
>> Linda Giannarelli: Any final questions or comments from any of our co-presenters?
Kathleen I will defer to you, anything else?
>> Kathleen Dwyer: No I do not think so. I think that we are all set. It seems like the
questions have slowed down and maybe people can take the next 15 minutes before their
next meeting to take a look at the resources.
>> Linda Giannarelli: Well thank you very, very much and it is exciting that there were
so many folks on the call. Thank you again.
>> Kathleen Dwyer: Thank you.
>> Operator: Ladies and gentlemen that does conclude the webinar for today. We thank you
for your participation and ask that you please disconnect your line.