Arlington Child Care Summit Contributes to Innovative Online Childcare Search Tool

By Office of Communication

Posted on May 11, 2020, May 11, 2020

On March 30, 2020, The Best Place for Kids™ launched the FIND! Child Care Search Tool to support Tarrant County residents and essential workers in need of childcare for kids 0-12 years of age as a part of the community response to COVID-19. While this tool has been a long-stated need and effort within the community, it was a topic of discussion at the inaugural Arlington Child Care Summit last September. Hosted by the Arlington Tomorrow Foundation and championed by Deputy Mayor Pro Tempore Victoria Farrar-Myers, the summit highlighted strategies to increase the access to and quality of childcare in Arlington and surrounding areas.

When the COVID-19 pandemic made childcare scarce this spring, partners The Best Place for Kids™ and Child Care Associates took the lead on developing an online childcare search tool in just a couple of days. “We have long-envisioned a platform like FIND! In fact, Fort Worth's Rep. Craig Goldman sponsored a bill to get a statewide tool funded during the last legislative session with our goals in mind. That bill did not pass, but because we had done the research on what our working parents needed and what would serve our workforce, when COVID hit, we were able to fast-track it locally to meet immediate needs in Tarrant County and the longer-term goals of The Best Place for Kids™,” said program director Cheraya Peña.

As the FIND! tool was established, a coordinated effort of local early childcare mentors (who were also working from home due to stay at home orders) sprang into action to call all licensed childcare centers in Tarrant County to identify which centers were operational and the availability at those centers. The data received from over 1,200 hours of calls was used to build the initial availability information in the FIND! search tool in Tarrant County. On March 30, essential service workers could immediately locate childcare options across Tarrant County that fit their specific childcare needs. More than 7,700 childcare slots were available in nearly 700 licensed facilities, including several providers who attended the Arlington Child Care Summit. As of early May 2020, there are more than 8,600 available slots in Tarrant County for children 0-12 years old listed on the FIND! search tool, with over 2,000 available slots in Arlington.

“The participation of Arlington childcare providers in The Best Place for Kids™ FIND! Child Care Search Tool means that Arlington families can easily find childcare close to home and work for our essential workers. I am proud of the work that has been accomplished by our passionate childcare industry leaders.” said Mayor Jeff Williams.

The FIND! search tool has been such a success that one month after the launch, it has been nationally lauded as a best practice for coordinating childcare across the state. The State of Texas launched a similar tool with the same technology just one week later using emergency funds for “Frontline” workers. Since the two systems use the same platform, someone who lives in Dallas or Denton Counties can easily access available childcare options through the FIND! search tool, even though it was originally built specifically for Tarrant County. As the importance of childcare continues to surface as a major aspect of post-COVID workforce recovery efforts, other states and communities are beginning to create access points for parents to find childcare availability in their communities.

While the innovative FIND! Child Care Search Tool was developed due to an urgent need to provide essential workers accurate information on childcare near their home and work in Tarrant County, the plan is for it to serve as a long-term resource for working parents across Tarrant County as the public health threat of coronavirus changes over time. “We were thrilled to be able to launch this in short order during our community’s response to COVID, as it not only met need of working parents searching for safe and accurate availability information to inform their childcare decisions but also the childcare providers that were trying to keep their business open while fulfilling a significant community need. Because of the feedback we’re receiving from parents and providers and our longer-term goals of ensuring that parents are connected with key local resources, we intend to keep this tool in place for the long-term to support working parents and childcare providers who want to ensure quality outcomes for children,” Peña added.

To find available childcare for essential workers, visit find.bestplace4kids.com/families.