New Guide Helps Colleges Explore Child Care Options for Parenting Students

A Guide for Colleges to Support Child Care for Parenting Students helps colleges weigh their options and build a mix of supports that fits their parenting students' needs within their communities.

The guide has five sections:

• Assessing Needs: Tools to map child care offerings across a state or college system, take stock of one college’s supports, and survey parenting students
• Care Options: Eight models, including campus centers, drop-in care, child care grants and stipends, after-school and school-break programs, and family, friend, or neighbor care
• Funding: More than 20 federal, state, local, private, and Oregon-specific sources, with who qualifies, what care each can support, and how colleges can use it
• Partnerships: Approaches such as reserved slots, Head Start partnerships, and navigation and referral, plus guidance on planning partnerships, formal agreements, and braiding funds
• Key Considerations: Strategies for making the case to college leaders and for addressing licensing, staffing, waitlists, and administrative burden, children on campus, and serving rural, online, and part-time students

Most entries include practical steps and real-world examples. Users can search each section and select entries to export.

The guide began with a focus on Oregon and grew to serve a national audience. It draws on interviews and group discussions with 44 national and Oregon-focused child care and higher education experts, along with feedback from members of the Oregon Association for the Education of Young Children. Many examples and some funding sources are specific to Oregon, but they point to approaches colleges elsewhere can adapt.

The guide was developed by Kate Westaby, Eileen Chanti, Kevin Relf, Kimberly Salazar, Theresa Anderson, and Renee Ryberg, with funding from The Ford Family Foundation.