Nationwide, public attention has increasingly focused on the need for a variety of early care and education arrangements to meet the changing needs of families. The demand for early care and education has grown for families from all socioeconomic sectors, intensifying as participants in welfare-to-work programs enter the workforce, and as work requirements for these programs become more stringent. In addition, research affirming the importance of children's initial years for their later social and cognitive development has heightened public awareness of and concern for the quality of care provided in centers and family child-care homes. However, while the demand for affordable, quality care for young children is on the rise, the realities of the early care and education (ECE) field present a different picture: understaffed centers, high rates of turnover among caregivers, and an educationally bifurcated workforce (with caregivers either on the low or high end of the educational spectrum). In light of research documenting the linkages among compensation, training, quality care, staff retention, and child development on the one hand, and public interest in the provision of ECE on the other, responses aimed at mitigating the staffing problem in the ECE field have focused strategies to improve retention among staff, and raise awareness regarding the role of compensation in enhancing quality. Programs launched in California provide examples of such an approach, where, over the last 3 years, 42 counties have initiated child-care retention incentive (CRI) programs. This policy brief is based on the qualitative component of the evaluation, and is meant to report on and summarize the most salient findings regarding the implementation of the programs in Alameda and San Francisco counties in their second year of operation, as well as to offer a view across the counties and compare certain aspects of their programs. The purpose of this brief is to highlight themes particularly relevant to Year 2 of these CRI programs; it builds on the Year 1 report. Additionally, some demographic data are included to provide the context in which implementation occurred. (Contains 4 tables and 27 endnotes.) [This research was supported by First 5 California.]