Lead by the County of Santa Barbara, the Downtown Santa Barbara Employer Child Care Partnership is a group of employers who have been meeting to explore the issue of availability of workforce child care in the downtown Santa Barbara area. The group is responding to input from employees that there is an increasing deficit of high quality child care spaces, in the downtown area, which is impacting the employees’ ability to work.
The group has completed an initial community-wide assessment of child care capacity and is moving forward with a formal employee child care needs assessment, the data from which will identify not only the specific child care needs of employees, but will also aid the group in determining a course of action that will address the issues for these employees, and allow them to be more productive, focused workers.
The group realizes that the downtown Santa Barbara area is not unique—lack of availability of high quality child care is an issue for employees everywhere.
Read what employers and parents are saying about child care.
First 5 Santa Barbara County
Office of Early Care & Education
1 East Anapamu St., Suite 200
Santa Barbara, CA 93101
Phone: 805-884-8062 • Fax: 805-564-8586
www.countyofsb.org/ceo/ece
I am pleased that the County of Santa Barbara is leading this significant effort, in collaboration with participating partners, to address our community’s working parents’ child care concerns.
This is an extraordinary opportunity for local employers to learn more about the numerous challenges their employees face in finding quality, affordable and accessible child care along with the resulting impacts on the workplace.
I encourage you to join us in our cost-effective project that will raise awareness of this critical problem. Together we can identify specific needs, address employers’ retention and productivity issues, and consider potential solutions that will benefit the children of our community.
Salud Carbajal
Chair, Board of Supervisor
