Our Focus
Our mission: Child Care Answers champions central Indiana’s early care and education ecosystem by equipping child care professionals with shared knowledge, coordinated supports, and strategic partnerships to strengthen care for children, families, the community and its workforce.
As a result of our mission, we focus our work on creating quality care and education for all central Indiana children. We help child care professionals navigate resources and ensure they have access to partners and businesses that can enhance their work. We ensure that community partners, employers, and policymakers have access to a platform that amplifies their own work and creates awareness around a shared vision. We envision a thriving early care and education system that lifts up child care professionals, guarantees families’ access to quality and affordable care, and elevates child care as essential infrastructure for a healthy workforce and community.
We welcome all, including those of all races, cultures, and nationalities, regardless of immigration status or language spoken; those of all sexual orientations, gender identities, gender expressions, or family structure; those of all ages and socio-economic circumstances; those of all abilities, including disabilities and medical or mental health conditions. Our services are free and accessible to all.
Children who attend high quality preschool programs are less likely to need special education, to be arrested, or to require social services. They tend to be healthier, earn higher incomes, and pay more taxes.
Urban Child Institute
Investments in Early Childhood Benefit Our Entire Community
Our focus on
Child care professionals
Young children of working families often spend more awake time in a child care setting than what they spend with their own families. Child care professionals wear many hats, balancing environments that provide a loving home-away-from-home while teaching children social-emotional skills and preparing them to succeed academically. They are often providing these services with wages that are among the lowest in the U.S. workforce, an average of $14.56 per hour or $30,284 in 2024.
We are thrilled to have recently introduced the Central Indiana Child Care Alliance (“the Alliance”), a shared service program for family child care homes. Sign up for our mailing list to be alerted to updates!
Our focus on
Community Partners
Investing in child care is not just an investment in children and families, it is an investment in the building blocks of our country and communities. And it will take all of us, at all levels, to solve the child care costs and availability dilemma. This is why we place so much value on the relationships we foster with other central Indiana community partners and agencies.
Our focus on
Employers
Lack of child care has a direct impact on businesses’ bottom line – Indiana companies lose $3.05 billion every single year from extra wages and reduced productivity, not to mention costs associated with recruiting and retaining quality employees.
Our resource center provides information for employers on family-friendly benefits and connections to child care. Look for more information soon about how we are changing and growing our offerings for employers!
U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation, and Early Learning Indiana. “Untapped Potential in IN: How Childcare Impacts Indiana’s Workforce and Productivity.” Indiana Chamber, September 2024. https://www.indianachamber.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Untapped_INDIANA_072924_DIGITAL.pdf.
“Early Educator Pay & Economic Insecurity Across the States – Early Childhood Workforce Index 2020.” CSCCE, June 2, 2021. https://cscce.berkeley.edu/workforce-index-2020/the-early-educator-workforce/early-educator-pay-economic-insecurity-across-the-states/.
“Childcare Workers : Occupational Outlook Handbook.” U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, August 28, 2025. https://www.bls.gov/ooh/personal-care-and-service/childcare-workers.htm#tab-5.
