Caregivers Employed: Responsive (OI3115)

This metric is intended to capture individuals who provide responsive early childhood care to children in preschools, daycare, or other settings. Examples of caregivers include preschool teachers and parents. Responsive care is the process of watching and tuning into a child’s cues, thinking about what they might mean, and then responding to them in a sensitive way (source: Zero to Three; see IRIS+ glossary for further detail). Caregivers do not necessarily need to be certified or licensed.

Organizations may use tools such as the Infant Toddler Responsive Caregiver Checklist (ITRCC) or the Healthy Families Parenting Inventory (HFPI) to assess responsiveness.

This metric is multi-dimensional with regard to the five dimensions of impact. It may help describe the WHO dimension when the stakeholder group represented by the metric is the stakeholder group targeted by the investment or organization. It may also help measure the HOW MUCH Scale dimension, which helps estimate the number of the targeted stakeholders experiencing the outcome. For more on the alignment of IRIS metrics to the five dimensions of impact, see specific guidance document. No single metric is sufficient to understand an impact; rather, metrics are selected as a set across all dimensions of impact. When possible, the selection of metrics to measure and describe the five dimensions should be based on best practice and evidence.