Child Care Connection & Referral Service

Community and Employers

Child Care Connection is dedicated to working with the communities throughout our nine counties. Some of the services provided include:

• Speakers and workshops on child care options and quality child care
• Information on child care needs and resources
• Recruitment and development of new child care resources
• Child care data

Developing Community Programs
What does it take to create quality child care in a community? It takes knowledge, skill, money and a little luck to get child care working well in a community. But most of all, it takes a team of dedicated individuals committed to make things happen.

Download the Developing Community Programs Manual that will help you understand how to strengthen child care in our community by showing you how to:

• Build community child care team
• Gather useful data
• Evaluate the child care options available to your community
• Develop short and long term goals
• Market your child care vision
• Implement an action plan
• Begin developing community child care

Employer Options
Each day across Illinois, employers pay the price for gaps in local child care resources:

• Absenteeism when parents stay home to care for ill children
• Lost productivity when parents are interrupted by telephone calls from unsupervised children at home
• Turnover when a shortage of available infant care prevents new parents from returning to work
• Reduced morale when employees cover for co-workers whose child care arrangements have fallen through

Ultimately, child care issues affect work quality and business competitiveness. Chances are your employees have struggled with child care. Nationally, a third of all parents' child care arrangements fall apart within three months. As the economy expands, the impact of this situation will increase.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, most new workers will be women with children under the age of six. What's more, over a quarter of single parents are now men. Additionally, a growing number of grandparents are raising their children's children. Child care issues are having an increasing impact on the workplace.

Effectively assisting employees with child care doesn't have to be costly or require taking on the liability. Employer child care assistance programs typically fall into four categories:

• Providing information
• Adopting flexible work hours and leave polcies
• Providing financial assistance
• Creating or supporting child care services

Of course variations exist, and it is entirely possible that a combination of options might best suit your business and employees. To find out more about these options and resources in detail, download Illinois Child Care: Options for Employers.

Child Care Connection also offers employers technical assistance on how to help their employees meet their child care needs. Information is provided regarding employer sponsored child care options and enhanced resource and referral contracts. Contact cccreferral@icc.edu or call (800) 421-4371 or (309) 690-7302 for more information.