Help Understand Barriers to Accessing Childcare 

Article provided by Community Partnership of the Ozarks

At Community Partnership of the Ozarks, we understand the importance of quality childcare. We also recognize that access to quality childcare is critical to families and employers. Locally, access to quality childcare continues to be one of the primary issues employees report as a challenge to securing and maintaining employment. Issues including access, hours of availability, and days of the week care are needed can all be barriers to accessing childcare.  

To gain more insight into these issues, Community Partnership of the Ozarks’ Early Care and Education Collaborative has developed a Child Care Consumer survey that is being distributed to families in the southwest region. The goal of this survey is to gain a better understanding of these issues in an effort to remove barriers to childcare.  Additionally, the survey asks about what families like and dislike about their current childcare provider and what might help with their childcare struggles.   

The results of this survey will be reviewed by the Early Care and Education Collaborative along with their Workforce Development subcommittee in June as they work toward improving access to quality childcare. Please share this survey with coworkers, employees, family, and friends to help us understand childcare needs and issues in our community. The survey can be accessed by following the link:  http://bitly.ws/BF6U