The Edmund S. Muskie School of Public Service at the University of Southern Maine wants to find out about the issues of finding and keeping child care for children with special needs. As part of this research project, we will hold meetings called “focus groups” in your community to bring together parents and guardians of special needs children and talk about their experiences with child care. The purpose of these focus group meetings is to learn:

• About finding and keeping child care and balancing work and family when you have a child with special needs or chronic health conditions
• How these experiences with child care affect families with children with special needs or chronic health conditions.

We will collect information about what is working and what is not working about child care for children with special needs and/or chronic health issues in your area. This information will hopefully help to improve access to child care for children with special needs. The federal Child Care Bureau is paying for this project.

The focus group will last for approximately two hours. A trained facilitator will conduct the focus group. A staff member from the University of Southern Maine will take notes and another will observe. The focus group will include between eight and eleven other people. Only first names will be used in the focus group discussion.

If you have any questions about this research, you should contact

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