Economic development group Forward Janesville has launched a new directory of local child care services as part of an effort to address concerns around access and availability.
The organization this week rolled out the new online resource, which aims to help Rock County residents find nearby child care providers more easily. It has a search function to parse options by location, ages served, hours and more.
Claire Gray is director of policy and strategic initiatives for Forward Janesville, which acts as the city’s chamber of commerce with nearly 600 members. In a recent interview, she said the group’s government relations council developed the directory after community engagement efforts last year identified child care as a “major issue” for employers and other residents.
After assessing the region’s total number of providers and child care slots, as well as how many more are needed, the council tapped some of the area’s largest employers to understand the perspective of their workers on this topic. Of the 26 businesses included, eight were among the area’s largest, Gray noted.
“We heard from 234 employees from our local employer base, who all said that finding child care in the Janesville, Milton area is challenging, there aren’t enough affordable, quality providers,” she said. “The largest perceived need is in infant/early toddler care … and when looking for providers, quality and reputation are the most important characteristics. Second is cost.”
In hopes of addressing the challenge around finding options for child care — both for workers and employers looking to fill jobs — Forward Janesville decided on a “simple solve” approach, Gray said. By gathering together information on the options that are available in the area, the chamber aims to help connect the dots for those seeking health care.
“We have employees and workers here that can’t even straight up find child care, even if they’re Googling, because you can go and you can Google, but it doesn’t give you a comprehensive search,” she said.
Gray also said the platform acts as a “capacity building mechanism” for the child care providers in Rock County, noting many of these businesses don’t have much of a budget for advertising.
“Because they’re so strapped for resources, and they rarely have the ability to market themselves, this is a mechanism for them to do that,” she said. “So it is complementing what they can do, but really elevating their marketing ability.”
Meanwhile, larger child care providers in the area that offer other services, such as the YMCA, are taking new approaches to addressing child care concerns, Gray noted. The local YMCA now offers infant care at its Milton facility, and is partnering with higher education institutions to recruit students on the early education track for staffing summer camps and after-care programs.
“So they’re really looking at creative ways to collaborate with other community organizations to fill their labor pipeline and deliver a quality experience,” she said. “So we do have a lot of providers who are doing creative things, and by having this child care directory, this enables them to market their services to a wider audience.”
Gray also referenced her own experience seeking child care options in Janesville, where she moved in 2015. After previously working in nonprofit management and for-profit supply chain management, Gray left the workforce for seven years to raise her children.
“It was hard to find those resources … I basically had to build my own list of providers,” she said. “And that was done by searching online and driving around town. It’s becoming better. I do think the AI searches are better. But it’s not to where it needs to be.”
The state Department of Children and Families has a child care locator, but Gray says it’s not very user friendly. Forward Janesville’s new directory organizes relevant information in a way that’s easier to compare side-by-side, she said, saving users time.
The Child Care Directory was created with a grant from the Forward Foundation’s Vision Forward Fund. The foundation is a nonprofit arm of the chamber that’s funded through private donations from the community, not the chamber’s membership. Its Vision Forward Fund is a $500,000 fund that’s “geared toward catalyzing change in our community,” Gray noted.
She added the directory isn’t exhaustive, and the chamber continues to add providers over time. It’s free to be included for any licensed child care provider.
“Everybody who’s there has been coming to our provider network meetings for close to a year now, and they all signed up and believed in this tool,” she said. “So it’s great that we developed this in conversation with our providers … This is a tool that’s not only for them, but it’s by them. They helped create it, we’re just the facilitator.”
