Applying for Child Care Benefits in the United States: 27 Families’ Experiences

U.S. Digital Response (USDR) conducted 27 user interviews with families across the United States who applied for child care benefits in 2020 and 2021. In this research, we propose a conceptual framework for thinking about a family’s journey as they navigate child care assistance programs, and identify general experiences, sentiments, and areas of interest in each step of the journey.

Using a user research technique called "journey mapping," we identify common steps that families pass through while applying for child care benefits no matter where they live in the United States. For each phase, we share insights, recommendations, direct quotes from families, and concrete examples of what's working. Our report includes over 30 new top-level insights from our interviews.

Public servants work with constraints: limited resources and legacy systems. In this report, we’ve only included high-impact recommendations that we believe are actionable and accessible to most teams seeking to improve the child care benefit application experience. We share examples of things that are working well that can be replicated — from Wisconsin's informative, succinct, and specific child care home page to Texas's provider search engine tool.

Whether you're a government change agent seeking to bring human-centric design into your agency, or an executive wishing to work with outside groups to fulfill your vision of a friendlier family experience, we include resources and next steps that any government team can take.