Purpose: To report the results of the Drink Well study, which aimed to increase water availability, accessibility and children’s water consumption in family childcare homes (FCCH), which care for over two million U.S. children.

Methods: 67 FCCH providers (FCCPs) from under-resourced communities in RI, MA and CT (63% Latina) completed baseline surveys that determined practices and barriers/strategies to improving water availability/accessibility. Then an intervention package was delivered to FCCH, including water filters, self-serve water stations, pitchers, child water bottles and educational materials for FCCPs, children and parents. Post-surveys were conducted 2-3 months later. Pre-post changes in FCCPs’ attitudes, barriers and practices re. water access/availability, and use/acceptability of intervention strategies were assessed. FCCPs also completed post-intervention qualitative interviews.

Results: 61 FCCP completed the post survey (91%). The intervention package was well utilized and liked. The percentage of FCCHs with self-serve water easily available indoors increased from 41.5% to 71.7%, and outdoors from 44.6% to 75%. Always providing water at snack-time increased from 62.0% to 76.7%; always providing water at meals increased from 83.3% to 88.3%. Prompting children to drink water at least 5 times daily increased from 29.2% to 58.3%. At posttest, 60% of FCCPs reported that children's access to water increased a lot; 61.7% reported that child water intake increased a lot; and 43% reported their own water consumption increased a lot because of the intervention. Only 25% of FCCPs reported that having parental support for child water intake increased a lot. When asked how much the intervention helped them to serve more water to children, and get children to drink more water, 88.3% and 85% of FCCPs, respectively reported “very much”. Qualitative survey and interview data supported the quantitative results. Final statistical analyses/testing and qualitative data analysis will be completed before March 2024.

Conclusions: Drink Well/Bebe Bien was feasible and acceptable to FCCPs and shows promise in increasing water accessibility and children’s intake in FCCHs. These results indicate the importance of training and support to promote drinking water for FCCPs and the need to involve parents in order to also influence children’s intake in the home setting. A larger scale RCT that will measure children’s actual pre-post water consumption is warranted.