Time Period(s) View help for Time Period(s)

Date of Collection View help for Date of Collection

Study Purpose View help for Study Purpose

The Early Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey (Baby FACES) 2022 is a nationally representative descriptive study of Early Head Start. It was designed to inform program planning, technical assistance, and research at the national level by:

1. Providing descriptive information about the quality, frequency, and intensity of Early Head Start services
2. Describing the characteristics, qualifications, and professional supports provided to staff working with Early Head Start families
3. Identifying key characteristics, strengths, and needs of families served in Early Head Start
4. Learning how Early Head Start children and families are faring in key areas of child and family well-being
5. Exploring associations between the type and quality of Early Head Start services and child and family well-being

Study Design View help for Study Design

The Early Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey (Baby FACES) 2022 includes surveys of children's parents, teachers, home visitors, and center and program directors, and observations of classrooms and home visits. Parents and staff (teachers or home visitors) also completed child reports. Finally, parents of children 12 months or older in the home-based option were observed in a semi-structured play task.

Sample View help for Sample

The Early Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey (Baby FACES) 2022 includes nationally representative samples of Early Head Start (EHS) programs, centers, home visitors, classrooms, teachers, and the families, children, and pregnant women they serve in Administration for Children and Families (ACF) Regions 1-10. The sample does not include Head Start programs serving only preschool-aged children, as well as any Early Head Start programs in Regions 11 (American Indian and Alaska Native) and 12 (Migrant and Seasonal Head Start) or in Alaska and Hawaii. Researchers also excluded any programs that are under transitional management, are outside the continental United States, or do not directly provide services to children and families. The sample does not include family child care (FCC) providers or families participating in the FCC option. The study includes programs that were EHS-Child Care Partnership (EHS-CCP) grant recipients, but did not use EHS-CCP status as a stratification variable in selecting the sample. The study's complex sample design incorporated multistage sampling, stratification, and unequal selection probabilities.

The Baby FACES 2022 sample was a "refreshed" version of the Baby FACES 2018 sample with an ultimate target of 100 participating programs. The study dropped programs no longer operating and randomly dropped some additional programs (stratified by service type) to give new programs a chance to enter the sample. The study released the sampled programs in pairs with the second in the pair acting as a backup if the first refused or was found to be ineligible. The study released 185 programs for recruitment and data collection and of those, 99 were eligible for the study and agreed to participate.

Within programs offering center-based services the study randomly sampled an average of 3 centers and about 2 classrooms/lead teachers. Within the sample of centers, the study randomly subsampled three-quarters to have classrooms observations and two-thirds of the subsampled centers to have child-level data collection (3 children/families per sampled classroom). This results in one-half of the sampled centers having both classroom observation and child data. Within programs offering home-based services, the study randomly sampled an average of 8 home visitors and 3 children/families within each visitor's caseload. In programs that provide center-based services, 245 centers, 451 classrooms and teachers, and 585 children and their parents participated in the study. In programs that provide home-based services, 497 home visitors and 915 children and their parents participated. Across all programs, 948 staff (teachers or home visitors) and 1500 children and their parents participated in the study.

The programs that were unavailable or unable to participate in 2022 may differ from the programs that participated in 2018 in unobserved ways. Therefore, to obtain cross-cohort estimates, users should compare estimates weighted to represent all programs in a given year for Baby FACES 2018 and Baby FACES 2022.

Time Method View help for Time Method

Universe View help for Universe

Early Head Start programs, centers, home visitors, classrooms, teachers, and participating families and children in Administration for Children and Families (ACF) Regions 1-10 in 2022

Unit(s) of Observation View help for Unit(s) of Observation

Data Type(s) View help for Data Type(s)

Mode of Data Collection View help for Mode of Data Collection

Response Rates View help for Response Rates

Baby FACES 2022: The first stage of selection yielded a participation rate of 54 percent for programs. In programs that provided center-based services, the participation rates were 100 and 85 percent for classrooms and children, respectively. Within programs offering home-based services, the participation rates were 100 and 67 percent for home visitors and children, respectively.

Presence of Common Scales View help for Presence of Common Scales

For a detailed list of scales used in the study, please see the user guide Table III.2. The table numbers are the same for Baby FACES 2018 and 2022 measures.

Original Release Date View help for Original Release Date

2023-09-25

Version History View help for Version History

Weight View help for Weight

The study created a series of weights including those at the program, center, classroom (teacher), home visitor, and child levels. The weights compensate for the differential probabilities of selection at the sampling stage and adjust for nonresponse so that these data are representative of Early Head Start programs, centers, home visitors, classrooms, teachers, and the families, children, and pregnant women in Regions 1 through 10 in spring 2018. The sample is representative at all the same levels in spring 2022, with the exception of pregnant women, who were not included in the sample.