CHILD CARE QUALITY & AVAILABILITY |
Indicator 7 |
Parents are often forced to stop working or are unable to look for work because they can’t find child care. Affordable, quality child care programs are a critical piece of infrastructure for successful communities. A strong economy needs great child care: we can’t work without it.
A goal of the Wausau Area is to attract skilled workers and talented individuals – many of which have young families. These individuals have a choice where to live and work; Marathon County needs to have accessible, affordable, quality child care programs for these young families to choose Marathon County.
The quality of care provided makes a big difference in the lives of children and families. Maintaining a safe, healthy place for children to learn and grow isn’t easy. It takes hard work and dedication. YoungStar is designed to help child care providers succeed. The 5 Star rating system gives providers an objective measure of program quality.
Decades of research have documented the far-reaching effects of early learning and caregiving experiences. (Child Care Aware)
This is the total number of children that can be served by regulated child care providers in Marathon County.
County: Marathon Total Capacity of Child Care Providers
County: Marathon Total Capacity of Child Care Providers
3,422
Child care slots
(2023)
Compared to:
Prior Value
(3,414)
Prior Value compares a measured value with the previously measured value. Confidence intervals were not taken into account in determining the direction of the comparison.
Trend
This comparison measures the indicator’s values over multiple time periods.<br>The Mann-Kendall Test for Statistical Significance is used to evaluate the trend<br>over 4 to 10 periods of measure, subject to data availability and comparability.
YoungStar is a five-star quality rating system for child care providers based on education, learning environment, business methods, and practices around child health and well-being.