The nation’s on-going childcare crisis has wide-ranging effects on both working parents and their employers, as well as the business sector and economy as a whole. The COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent safety measures enacted by Gov. Inslee since March have intensified and highlighted this issue across Washington.

As a response to this growing need and to provide guidance to small businesses struggling to meet their employees’ needs, the PacMtn Workforce Development Council and Thurston County Chamber of Commerce have developed a toolkit to share best practices and help business leaders support their employees to access affordable, high-quality childcare.

This toolkit, Coloring Outside the Lines: A Creative Guide for Business Participation in the Childcare Solution, underscores the importance of accessible childcare by providing both local and nationwide statistics and trends, along with multiple routes that business owners can take to address the issue. Additionally, Coloring Outside the Lines outlines a number of little-known or infrequently utilized perks for businesses to provide childcare support.

The toolkit also includes resources for more information about the childcare crisis as a whole, and Thurston Chamber has posted a list of childcare providers across Thurston, Mason, Lewis, Grays Harbor, and Pacific counties below.