Design a concept utilizing a parent’s peer network to close the childcare information inequity gap

Challenge: How might we get reliable child care into the hands of low-income families with children ages 0-3 in Alameda County?

In Alameda County, formal child care options for an infant can cost between $9,000-13,000 annually - or approximately 65% of a minimum wage employee's total income. But when parents can't afford care, they can't work and the lack of childcare poses a significant barrier to a low-income parent's economic and educational mobility.

We began with secondary research and initial subject matter expert interviews to understand the child care field and begin to find opportunities to explore. 

Our initial hypothesis were focused on parents finding care:

• parents usually experience a sense of urgency when looking for childcare and often it is a reactive and stressful process.
• parents don’t have ‘true’ childcare options. The experience of selecting a provider is overwhelming and time consuming and often parents are forced to compromise on their choice due to constraints (financial, availability, etc)
• parents must rely on multiple childcare options to fit their needs because usually one single option does not meet their needs.

With these hypothesis, we transitioned into more in depth stakeholder interviews and began to test initial concepts. As we collected more data and insights, we were able to more clearly identify opportunities and began generative workshops with stakeholders. Ultimately, we conducted a micro-trial to test several touch points of a service concepts. 

Client: Tipping Point Community
Team:  user-centered designer (myself), philanthropist, community engagement specialist
My Deliverables:

• Qualitative and generative research, analysis, and synthesis
• Concept development and strategy
• Micro-trial planning and execution
• Visualizations (frameworks, presentation)
• Workshop Facilitation

Key Learnings

Often parents didn’t know about child care resources and didn’t have a full picture of their child care and subsidy options or the know-how to set up the most optimal child care for their family.

When seeking child care, parents relied on their communities for child care support and information. Often they received inaccurate or biased information which ultimately influenced their choices - sometimes leading to less optimal care.

Based on our findings from our initial research, we found two opportunities for explore:

1. For supply: create a new child care model, a provider consortium
2. For demand: get parents set up in their initial research phase to best find care to meet their needs

After these workshops, the concept with the most traction was focused on a peer mentor meeting parents in pre-existing community groups to share and discuss holistic information about all of their options- formal and informal. They would also connect parents to other organizations for referrals, subsidy information and provider applications. We conducted a three week micro-trial developing materials based on our findings and trained two peer mentors to test several high-level touch points of this concept.