| The swipe card mechanism is burdensome for beneficiaries | Compliance/technology | “So I have to swipe the card, put the pin and then like, oh, man, it’s been a while. […] sometimes I will have a problem with the, with the swiping [machine], so I will have to get somebody to help me how to do it.” [Parents and guardians] |
| Compliance/time consuming | “If you had more than one children, you had to start all over for that second child. It was a very difficult process. Some people did it beautifully, and other people, some people are in a hurry, some people have difficulty coping.” [Public agency staff] |
| Compliance/time consuming | “To get a parent to swipe in in the morning and out at the end of the day, every single day, or to back swipe that you know, fourteen-day period after it’s already taken place, I mean, for any parent who’s dropped off a child care, that time doesn’t exist.” [Advocates] |
| Psychological/stigma | “You know, it’s not even just with child care. It can be with just utilizing your snap card, you know what I’m saying? You know, going to the grocery store and just trying to get your groceries and then someone sees you pull out your snap card and then it can make you feel uncomfortable because of that stigma that unfortunately comes with it.” [Parents and guardians] |
| Psychological/social marker | “A few years ago, this is how it was in our grocery stores, when people would go in and there’d be a specific cashier that could deal with food stamps. Now, you wouldn’t know because it was unacceptable in society to be, you know, kind of earmark like that and identified like that. However, we have the same antiquated system in our childcare.” [Child care provider] |
| Pyschological/social marker | “... And it is so terrible to see these families have to identify themselves by this swipe in swipe out system. It’s archaic. It is. It’s just I don’t say inhumane, but the social justice of it is so huge, and it’s 2022, and we’re lining up families that live in poverty to identify themselves.” [Advocates] |
| The swipe card mechanism is burdensome for child care providers | Compliance/staff | “... I typically had to hire a staff member just to do epic to look in, to see who swipe and who didn’t swipe, and that’s a lot.” [Child care provider] |
| Compliance/staff | “I’m the person who goes to the the infants room into our waddlers room, and I’m also the person who’s supposed to be keeping track of our payments and finding any problems, and if someone didn’t swipe and they have 2 weeks to do the back swipe I’m supposed to be the person managing that, and that’s the problem.” [Child care provider] |
| Compliance/staff | “Rather than being frantic about having to look at that portal every day: Did they transact? Was it a successful transaction? Who do I have to chase? I have to hire a whole person to look at those transactions all the time, and I have to spend an entire salary on someone to do that kind of work. And that is so very hard to do that.” [Public agency staff] |
| Compliance/procedures | “You could get more than one machine [to transact], but it’s still people are coming, there’re coats going on and off, there’re carriages, there’s: “oh, I just wanna let you know, Johnny didn’t really feel well,” Johnny puked, you know… There’s just commotion getting all these people in the door, and who punched, who didn’t punch. Now you need somebody running after them: “Oh, you didn’t Punch.” [Public agency staff] |
| Pyschological/mistrust | “All of these systems are built simply because they do not trust child care providers to do things in the same way that the Department of Education does it.” [Public agency staff] |
| Recommendations to reduce burdens | Efficiency of resources | “Creating a better process and experience for both providers and parents; and being efficient and effective.” [Public agency staff] |
| Innovative ways | “I’m sure that every center takes attendance for insurance purposes.” [Public agency staff] |