Having good childcare means having strong youth and families which builds a foundation for strong communities. If people do not have access to childcare within the community, they will leave the community to find childcare elsewhere which does a disservice to their community. If the people within the community value building it up, they need to address childcare needs, encourage a better infrastructure to support entrepreneurship, and put better supports in place for providers. The Pottawatomie County (Pott. Co.) Economic Development Corporation identifies the following goal for child care:

"The Development of new and creative programs to enhance the availability and affordability of day care for children from birth to five years."

The following report, "Access to Affordable, Quality Child Care in Pottawatomie County, Kansas", was compiled through a collaborative effort by the Pottawatomie County Child Care Task Force and the K-State Research and Extension Applied Research in Child Health and Enhancing Resilience (ARCHER) Lab. Development of measures was accomplished through a Community-Based Participatory Research approach. This report covers strategic goals and recommendations for the development of new and creative programs to enhance the availability and affordability of day care for children from birth to five years. The link below will take you to a draft of this report.

https://www.pottawatomie.k-state.edu/docs/attachment%201.pdf