Mesa County (CO) Partnership for Children & Families

A Unique Starting Point

The issue of inadequate child care supply is challenging enough in even the most ideal environments. In Mesa County, Colorado, the complex and nuanced interplay of demographics, geography, and infrastructure has forced officials to get strategic to meet the needs of more than 8,000 children.

“Mesa County is just so unique,” says Michelle Reeves, family access supervisor at the Mesa County Partnership for Children & Families (PCF), one of 35 Early Childhood Councils charged with administering quality improvement and systems building efforts throughout the state of Colorado. “We have these urban, very high-poverty areas like Clifton and Central Grand Junction, and then we have these rural towns…We have different kinds of cultures all wrapped into one, and we’re one of the largest geographic counties in all of Colorado.”

The challenges were particularly daunting in Clifton, a city of about 20,000 people that had no full-day child care options as of 2021. When officials dug into why, they found that many residents were choosing not to work or put their children in care due to a lack of transportation and availability of childcare. The ensuing discussions at the county level revealed another need: reliable data on child care supply and demand. Fortunately, PCF could confidently tell that story, thanks in large part to a recently implemented technology platform known as BridgeCare.

Better Experiences and Better Insights

Mesa County implemented BridgeCare alongside several other Early Childhood Councils in the state looking to reduce costs with a shared contract. PCF leadership saw the value BridgeCare could add to their community, including improved experiences for families looking for care and for providers maintaining their enrollment and openings.

PCF was particularly interested in the program’s user-friendly, role-based portals, including:

• Family Portal: Families can search for child care programs, see available openings, and learn more about providers in their area. in an easy-to-use, simple to navigate experience. This search portal allows families to search and filter for child care providers that meet their care needs, including specialty care, provider characteristics and types of classroom offerings, languages spoken, and supportive services offered.
• Administrator Portal: PCF uses this portal to update provider data on behalf of child care providers, communicate with providers and families via text or email, and pull detailed reports about provider and family data.
• Provider Portal: Allow providers to update child care seat availability, share detailed information about their programs, and communicate with families enrolled in their programs.

PCF began using BridgeCare's robust reporting and analytics capabilities to compile data that would be used to inform and validate the direction they were headed in. Clifton was known as a high-needs area, and work had begun years earlier on addressing those needs with multiple groups. BridgeCare provided the empirical evidence they were expecting: Clifton was the highest searched area across Mesa County.

When county leaders were presented with the evidence of high demand, they knew their decision to prioritize increased supply was the right one. In 2024, the Clifton Childcare Center opened its doors within the brand new Clifton Community Campus. This beautiful, multipurpose facility provides more than 230 child care slots and workforce training in an area that was previously considered a child care desert.

A Data-Driven Community

Insights into where families are looking for care, for what age groups, and what types of providers they were looking for has been invaluable. The county actively uses supply and demand data and analytics to:

• Identify geographic or age-group demand hotspots
• Coordinate and optimize community outreach efforts
• Guide local child care providers about where and when to expand programs

The benefits aren’t just limited to child care, either. Other family support services have also been able to use this data and BridgeCare’s tools to better help families access the services and assistance available to them.

“We’re able to take a look and see that the only searches that are happening in Palisade are for preschool, so let’s get started on UPK in that area. Whitewater only has searches for school-age children, let’s look at some afterschool programs for them. And so we’re able to adapt to that data [and plan our community outreach around it].” -Michelle Reeves, family access supervisor, Mesa County Partnership for Children & Families

To learn how BridgeCare can support and modernize your child care data and technology infrastructure, connect with one of our specialists today.