Rachel - foster parent, social worker, adoptive parent - Sept 28.md

Rachel.

Late 30s. Social worker, former foster parent, adoptive parent of child in daycare (2yo).

Available for feedback next week.

Intro Script**:**

• Hi, ___________. My name is ___________, and I’m going to be walking you through this session today.*

• Before we begin, I have some information for you, and I’m going to read it to make sure that I cover everything.*

• You probably already have a good idea of why we asked you here, but let me go over it again briefly. We’re asking people to try using 2 Web sites that we’re reviewing so we can see whether they work as intended. The session should take about 30 minutes.*

• The first thing I want to make clear right away is that we’re testing the sites, not you. You can’t do anything wrong here. In fact, this is probably the one place today where you don’t have to worry about making mistakes.*

• As you use the site, I’m going to ask you as much as possible to try to think out loud: to say what you’re looking at, what you’re trying to do, and what you’re thinking. This will be a big help to us.*

• Also, please don’t worry that you’re going to hurt our feelings. We’re doing this to help the agency support working parents, so we need to hear your honest reactions.*

• If you have any questions as we go along, just ask them. I may not be able to answer them right away, since we’re interested in how people do when they don’t have someone sitting next to them to help. But if you still have any questions when we’re done I’ll try to try to answer them then. And if you need to take a break at any point, just let me know.*

• Do you have any questions so far?*

Intro Questions:

• OK. Before we look at the site, I’d like to ask you just a few quick questions.*

• First, what’s your occupation? What do you do all day?*

Social worker, preschool evaluation coordinator for her agency. If you were concerned about an area of your child’s development, say communication issue, etc. Go to school district and choose an evaluator. I get a referral from a school district, do a needs assessment, social history, do appropriate evals, collect the info and present/advocate for child to get appropriate support (IEP).

[Note: for context, Rachel is also a former foster parent who just adopted her son with her husband. She has procured daycare while a foster parent AND a birth parent.]

• Now, roughly how many hours a week altogether—just a ballpark estimate—would you say you spend using the Internet, including Web browsing and email, at work and at home?*

Internet time - on a work day, prob 5 hours. Email/browsing - for work, we use a software package

• And what’s the split between email and browsing—a rough percentage?*

50/50.

• What kinds of sites are you looking at when you browse the Web? Do you have any favorite Web sites?*

Internet favorites - amazon, bbc news, facebook, netflix and hulu.

What types of devices do you use to browse the internet and email?

Phone and desktop.

Now, about your experiences with daycare. Do you have a car?

Yes

Do you have to get your kids to child care by walking or by public transportation, or would you drive?

Drive

What is the furthest distance you would consider going to find child care, assuming you had a quality option available at a shorter distance?

I don’t know. I currently drive between 20-35 minutes. It’s a 20 minute commute from my home and 35 from my work.

How often do you need temporary child care verses ongoing child care?

I currently have my child in part-time child care (3 full days per week).

How did you go about making your current child care selection?

Different search because she used to do play therapy with preschoolers, made a list of the daycares that stuck out for her, liked staff, facility, thought they were good programs. Went from that experience - liked their curriculum, their interaction. Went to 2 visits. And, made our choice, we chose because it was a center, but it felt very family-centered, real warmth about it. Kids were part of a family. Run by Catholic Charities, and then they closed it. Had little time to find a daycare substitute. Friend got a waiver from the state - so recommendation for the second location which is much better for my son who is now a bit older.

Their foster care county is different - than the daycare county. My husband has more flexibility in his job - so we chose to have son go outside of the county so that the birth family didn’t find him.

Do you care about price and hours of operation, data not provided by the state?

Yes! State does NOT pay all of daycare. Counties have different rates for daycare. We live in a county and do fostercare in a county that has a much lower rate than the county he goes to daycare in. They pay so sporadically - as a foster parent, you have to deal with the embarassment of the daycare saying that they haven’t been paid. We have to contact the social worker to get them paid. The daycare center felt like they had to say something very strong to the county - Months behind on payments. That makes it very tough for the foster parents - they are the guardians. My husband and I paid for the last month of daycare when our child was still technically in fostercare because it was so late. Eventually the state paid, but we had to advocate for it. This is very stressful. You are in the middle and feel helpless.

MDHS review script

• OK, great. We’re done with the questions, and we can start looking at things.*

• First, I’m going to ask you to look at this page and tell me what you make of it: what strikes you about it, whose site you think it is, what you can do here, and what it’s for. Just look around and do a little narrative.*

• You can scroll if you want to, but don’t click on anything yet.*

It says that I put in my name - so I assume that’s me.

Provider type - I’m not any of those. Should I just choose one.

Do you recognize any of those terms?

Yes. But I don’t know what a slot contractor is.

I am going to arbitrarily choose a city and county.

What is a quality star rating? IDK. I don’t know if it rates my agency.

Fills in a random set of criteria - put in my city and county and a rating.

Well, there are no results. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.

If you were looking for a daycare center, what would you think to do?

I don’t know. I really don’t understand how I would find these centers. I’m going to fill in the information where it says that it needs info [Note: user is confused about dropdowns that say no type selected, she thinks they are required.]

Where would you like to start your search for a daycare?

I would want to see other parents and their reviews and what they say. I’m thinking as a parent. I would like to know child/teacher ratio, extracurricular things, curriculum followed, I suppose that’s what the quality star rating is - if I were looking, I would have moved onto a different site already.

I just realized that I’m probably choosing the wrong county and city. Maybe that’s why there are no results. I would probably start with county - although my county is large. I may want to start with city first.

Can you try selecting Center as Type and hit search?

Now I see results. It’s a list of daycares. Many are not rated - why is that? It seems only a few are starred. I don’t know what the stars mean.

If I didn’t have a set of daycares in mind, it’s nice to see them all listed. Are you able to click on them for more info? Go to a Website?

If you had a way to start the search using your own terms, what you would do?

I would like to enter my address and select within certain # of miles. I would probably be searching by my home address and my work address. We chose to have a daycare closer to our home, because my husband has more flexibility. So, right now, our daycare is close to home but further from my work.

Civic Actions Prototype script

*Please look at this website and tell me what you think it’s for and what you can do. *

Map that tells me where coffee shops are. Starbucks - I suppose that is not what it’s showing me, but that’s what the icon says to me. I thought when I clicked on it, I would see more info - I only see a few icons - why aren’t there the same number as are in the list?

Do you know how to change the map to change the address?

I see you can search - but I’m not sure that I would know what I’m searching for.

I do see now that you can update the zipcode.

Confusion over why there are more in the listing than icons on the map.

The map’s very sensitive. That took me a minute to update the zip - I would update the zip, if I were here, I would put in several different zipcodes when I put in a daycare. If you scroll up, I scrolled up and couldn’t see the facilities listing, the map was too large.

When you look at this list - it gives you the list and name/type, center, home based. I like capacity listing - something small or bigger. Would like a link to the website. The info is what you’d want.

What other information would you use in making your determination about a daycare provider, or who to follow up with?

Security information? At our daycare, there is a Finger print reader.

When we searched for daycares originally, we had an atypical experience, because there were openings. We have a daycare in my work, and I know that foster parents are upset when they have a new child and can’t get them into the program.

Knowing if there are openings would be useful - but might be practically hard though.

Where people work - is important to the daycare decision. They may want daycare near work so that if something happens they are closer. It’s not realistic to think that the child will always be in a daycare in that county. Lots of logistics.

Wrapping up:

• [their name], I think you answered all the questions I had. Is there anything I can answer for you?*

• [pause, answer questions as needed]*

• Thank you so much for talking with me today. It was really helpful for me to hear you talk about [repeat a topic the interviewee discussed]. That’s the type of detail that is impossible for me to learn without talking to real people who are experiencing it. *

• Thanks again, and have a good rest of you day!*