About Us

To learn more about us:

• Who We Are
• Our History
• Our Agenda
• About Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies

Child Care Aware® Parent Network, a membership organization within the National Association of Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies (NACCRRA), brings you together with millions of people who share your concern about access to safe, affordable and nurturing child care. Our members are parents, grandparents, child advocates and champions - anyone and everyone who cares about children and the quality of care they receive.

NACCRRA is our nation’s leading voice for child care. We work with more than 800 state and local Child Care Resource & Referral agencies to ensure that families in every local community have access to high-quality, affordable child care. To achieve our mission, we lead projects that increase the quality and availability of child care, offer comprehensive training to child care professionals, undertake research, and advocate child care policies that positively impact the lives of children and families.

In 1988, Child Care Aware® was launched as a project of Dayton Hudson Corporation. In 1992, NACCRRA joined Dayton Hudson in launching the consumer education program of Child Care Aware®. The program has provided advice, information and referrals to millions and millions of civilian and military families since its inception. It serves families directly by providing consumer education information and child care referrals to local agencies. Since 2002, Child Care Aware® has been partly funded by grants from the Child Care Bureau, Office of Family Assistance, Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

In 2006, we set out to create a national platform for parents, grandparents and everyone who cares for and about children. It is funded entirely by donations, private grants and NACCRRA. We spent two years learning all we could about how to best connect and serve parents on a national level. We conducted focus groups, completed a national study of parent’s perceptions of child care and researched community organizing best practices for the 21st century. We set out to create a responsive organization that would meet the needs of busy, active, compassionate and plugged-in parents like you. Child Care Aware® Parent Network is the result.

Together with you, we want to bring child care to the forefront of the nation’s plan and create new perspectives about the priority of children’s issues. We offer you top notch information on parenting and child care. You’ll also receive networking and tools to support this cause in exchange for your support. As a member, we will call on you to take action and help us make children’s issues a top policy priority.

We’ll be there for you, your child and all children - and we hope you’ll join us! As a matter of fact, we hope you will bring along everyone you know who shares your passion for children!