Childcare Landscape Study - Flipbook - Page 78
Davidson County Child Care Landscape Study Results
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Limited Providers,
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Limited
Slots
An Analysis of Home-Based
Child Care in Greater Davidson County, TN
DAVIDSON COUNTY CHILD CARE LANDSCAPE STUDY RESULTS | BRIEF 3
Introduction
High-quality child care is an essential resource for families and children. Reliable child care
enables parental workforce participation, simultaneously providing children with a safe,
nurturing, and structured environment that promotes healthy development.1 Quality child
care also strengthens families' economic stability, which improves child developmental
outcomes and promotes broader economic growth.2
Despite the essential need for child care, families across the United States face challenges
accessing or affording it.3 Understanding the structure and availability of different types of
child care in the greater Davidson County region provides context for assessing gaps in
child care access locally.
In Davidson County, TN, which includes the capital city of Nashville, center-based and
home-based programs are the two primary types of licensed child care offered to the
approximately 39,900 local children under age 5 in households in which all parents work.4
Families have varied preferences for child care settings, and both center- and home-based
child care play essential roles in meeting diverse needs and preferences.5 Though both
program types support family wellbeing and children’s development, they differ in
structure, capacity, and overall availability.
Home-based child care represents an exceedingly small share of licensed child care
programs in the region, but remains an important component of the local child care
landscape. To best support greater Davidson County’s home-based child care programs,
localized data are needed to understand the unique strengths and challenges of the local
home-based child care system.
To learn about home-based child care in greater Davidson County, the Prenatal-to-3 Policy
Impact Center (Policy Impact Center) at Vanderbilt University developed and fielded a
survey to all licensed child care programs in the region during the Summer of 2025. Of the
29 licensed home-based programs, 14 responded to the Davidson County Child Care
Provider Experience Survey (Child Care Provider Survey) and provided sufficient
Prenatal-to-3 Policy Impact Center 2025
www.pn3policy.org
