Although the majority of infants and toddlers receive some nonparental care, much of that care is low in quality. The PITC is designed to promote responsive, relationship-based care, teaching caregivers to understand infants' vulnerabilities and competencies, and to facilitate their cognitive, language, social, physical, and emotional development, within the context of the community, culture, and language. We are conducting an evaluation of the PITC using an experimental design in which child care centers and home child care providers who apply for the program are randomly assigned to receive the training or to be in a control group that will not receive the training immediately (but may have it after the study is complete). We collect observations and other information on the child care settings before and after the training and also assess the development of the participating children. The research is conducted in collaboration with Berkeley Policy Associates and West Ed and is funded by the U. S. Institute for Educational Studies.

This is a ten-site longitudinal study of children born in 1991 and followed into adolescence. Organized by the National Institute for Child Health and Human Development, it was planned and executed by a Steering Committee composed of the Principal Investigators from the ten sites, including Aletha Huston and Marion O'Brien, the PIs at the University of Kansas. The initial goal was to investigate the effects of early child care experiences on children's development, but it became "much more than child care" as repeated assessments of children's families, child care settings, schools, and out-of-school activities were collected along with detailed information on health, cognitive and social development.