Home-Based Childcare in Kenya

Policy Context

Affordable and reliable childcare is a critical constraint for low-income families in Kenya. Home-based centers, typically small, informal enterprises run by women, are the dominant childcare option for these families. Their quality varies widely, and professional support is rare. Recent studies show that only about 9% of home-based centers get any external training, and as many as 78% lack basic play or learning materials.

Digital interventions, ranging from  SMS reminders to WhatsApp-based support to parents, have improved child cognitive outcomes. But this evidence is built entirely on parents and household caregivers, with no rigorous evidence covering paid or informal home-based providers. This scoping study addresses that gap by identifying the behavioral, social, and technological factors that would make an SMS and AI-chatbot intervention feasible and acceptable for home-based caregivers. 

Study Design

The scoping study will run in Busia, Bungoma, and Kakamega counties in Western Kenya. The intervention and data collection are scheduled to run from February to July 2026.

Data collection will combine  50 in-depth interviews with home-based caregivers and quantitative surveys with all 50 caregivers and an additional 50 parents (n=100). The two aims are to (1) characterize how caregivers currently access childcare information, and (2) surface practical barriers to SMS and AI-chatbot adoption. Qualitative interviews will document norms, motivations, trust, message interpretation, phone-sharing practices, daily routines, and how much new information caregivers can realistically absorb.  Quantitative surveys will capture literacy levels, phone behaviors, SMS use, preferred message timing, and baseline center characteristics. Findings will inform the design of a digital information intervention to be tested in a subsequent evaluation.

Results and Policy Lessons

Forthcoming.