Child and Adult Care Food Program Participation Benefits, Barriers and Facilitators for Independent Child Care Centers in California.

Content Provider	Europe PMC
Author	Lee, Danielle L. Homel Vitale, Elyse Marshall, Samantha Kay-Daleiden Hecht, Christina Beck, Lindsay T. Ritchie, Lorrene D.
Editor	Vandenplas, Yvan
Copyright Year	2022
Abstract	The Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP) provides reimbursements for nutritious foods for children with low-income at participating child care sites in the United States. The CACFP is associated with improved child diet quality, health outcomes, and food security. However CACFP participation rates are declining. Independent child care centers make up a substantial portion of CACFP sites, yet little is known about their barriers to participation. Researcher-led focus groups and interviews were conducted in 2021–2022 with 16 CACFP-participating independent centers and 5 CACFP sponsors across California CACFP administrative regions to identify participation benefits, barriers, and facilitators. Transcripts were coded for themes using the grounded theory method. CACFP benefits include reimbursement for food, supporting communities with low incomes, and healthy food guidelines. Barriers include paperwork, administrative reviews, communication, inadequate reimbursement, staffing, nutrition standards, training needs, eligibility determination, technological challenges, and COVID-19-related staffing and supply-chain issues. Facilitators included improved communication, additional and improved training, nutrition standards and administrative review support, online forms, reduced and streamlined paperwork. Sponsored centers cited fewer barriers than un-sponsored centers, suggesting sponsors facilitate independent centers’ CACFP participation. CACFP participation barriers should be reduced to better support centers and improve nutrition and food security for families with low-income.
Journal	Nutrients
Volume Number	14
PubMed Central reference number	PMC9654096
Issue Number	21
PubMed reference number	36364713
e-ISSN	20726643
DOI	10.3390/nu14214449
Language	English
Publisher	MDPI
Publisher Date	2022-10-22
Access Restriction	Open
Rights License	Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). © 2022 by the authors.
Subject Keyword	Child and Adult Care Food Program child care policy benefits barriers
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article
Subject	Food Science Nutrition and Dietetics