Addressing Iowa's Child Care Crisis through Data-Driven Solutions 

Early childhood care and education (ECE) critically impacts child development—90% of a child’s brain development happens during their first five years. Quality care during this time is essential for a child’s lifelong success. Yet, a lack of quality care abounds and also affects family livelihoods, community and business growth, and state economies. Many states today struggle with child care shortages that already existed but were brought to unprecedented levels by the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition, some states haven’t been able to address these issues because they’re overwhelmed by workforce challenges.

Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds created the Child Care Task Force after her Economic Recovery Advisory Board identified lack of access to affordable quality child care as a major barrier to the state’s workforce recovery post-COVID. The task force reported that the state loses $935 million annually in tax revenue, employee absences, and turnover due to the child care crisis—and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Early childhood education plays a critical role in a child’s development and sets the foundation for all types of learning: literacy, mathematics, and behaviors. Caretakers who work outside (or from) the home need quality care for their children during working hours. Meanwhile, 23% of Iowans (and 35% of rural Iowans) live in areas with a shortage of licensed or registered child care providers. In 2021, 14% of Iowa children ages five and younger had a family member who quit, changed, or refused a job because of child care challenges such as lack of availability or affordability.

The median monthly cost of full-time child care for one child in Iowa is $1031, which is more than housing for the average state resident. Some families qualify for subsidies, such as Child Care Assistance, to help offset the cost, but providers were finding it difficult to participate in those programs due to the volume of tracking, reporting, and bookkeeping required.

A 2020 Iowa State University report states that Iowa’s child care shortage causes the following losses throughout the state:

• Working caretakers lose an average of $3350 annually.
• Businesses lose an average of $1150 annually per working caretaker.
• Taxpayers lose an average of $630 per working caretaker annually in income and sales tax.

The Iowa Child Care Search application is part of HHS’s original vision to provide simple-to-use, accurate resources that help families find child care regardless of their technology comfort level.

Iowa Child Care Search is an intuitive, public-facing website application that allows users to search for child care that meets their family’s needs.

Users begin by inputting addresses for home and work, bringing up a map. The map displays where providers are in relation to the route, and users can even add stops such as carpool pick-ups or school drop-offs. Further refining by selecting the number and ages of children for which they are seeking care. The map shows provider names, with facility type indicated by icon and available slots designated by color.

Clicking on the provider provides further information such as certifications, specialties, subsidy participation, and transportation availability.

The public can access Iowa Child Care Search from several state and associated websites where families are likely to seek child care information, making it an easy-to-find one-stop resource to dramatically reduce the heavy lift of connecting to quality child care.

The C3 solution is built on modern architecture that’s adaptable, scalable, and facilitates the addition and integration of future systems to continue delivering valuable insights no matter what the next unknown holds​.

Future possibilities for expanding C3 could include additional data sources like tax records, home visit records, early intervention efforts, equity dashboards, and information from other family service providers such as WIC, Medicaid, and social workers. The potential for additional technology in the future includes consumer education AI chatbots to help families understand their child care choices and machine learning (ML) to project supply and demand with different assumptions.

Building the operational data store is the first step for any state looking to solve complex problems with data-driven insights to make a difference in the lives of their citizens and communities. And it doesn’t mean just starting from scratch. This technology maximizes the capabilities of existing systems and connects them together in a way that can meet your needs both now and in the future.