Who's Watching Our Kids—Addressing Kern County's Child Care

In collaboration with Community Connections for Child Care (CCCC) and the Local Investment in Child Care (LINCC) program of Kern County, California, Adam Cabrera GIS Consulting Services conducted a mapping analysis to assess the current state of child care services countywide.

The analysis identifies pockets of child care need in communities throughout Kern County. The problem was how to identify these pockets with current available data and present the results in a user-friendly format that provided a valuable tool in educating local communities and policy makers about current child care issues such as lack of subsidized child care and employer-sponsored child care within Kern County communities.

Using GIS technology, the maps are based on a suitability analysis model that consists of individual locations of child care centers, family child care home providers, and license-exempt providers registered with county child care in relation to child care need densities at the census tract level for all Kern County communities. These child care need densities contain data for children (0–13), child care provider capacity, child care waiting list, and child care provider vacancies.

In addition to child care provider locations, the maps include geographically relevant information such as median household income, Kern County elementary schools and their API rankings, and major employers with more than 100 employees.