NNPA: What is the Operation Child Care Project? How did it get started?
OCC Project: Operation Child Care Project is the only nationwide nonprofit focused on child care access and equity for military-connected families. We support families through the full spectrum of child care challenges, from finding a babysitter to navigating the military’s subsidy programs. The organization began when our Founder and CEO, Kayla, was stationed overseas with her spouse. She noticed that many military spouses with young children were out of the workforce, while those with older children or no children were more likely to be employed. The reason became clear: families with young children often couldn’t access care on the installation and faced barriers to finding care off the installation.
After becoming a subject matter expert in military child care, and a new mom herself, Kayla ran into those same barriers. Despite her expertise, she was unable to access the very subsidy program she understood inside and out due to administrative roadblocks. It became clear to her that she was struggling to access care, other families were likely facing the same challenges without the same level of knowledge or support. Operation Child Care Project was built out of that realization and continues to do this work today.
NNPA: What needs do you see and how do you address them?
OCC Project: One of the major challenges military families face is the displacement that comes with moving every few years. Often, we arrive somewhere new without family, without an established network, and without the trusted people many rely on. That puts us at a disadvantage when it comes to community and connection. It also means we don’t have a built-in support system for last-minute or emergency child care.
Because of that gap, we kept seeing military spouses turn to social media to try to find someone to care for their children. That’s exactly why we created the HomeFrontHelp program. At its core, the program is about giving families safer care options within their own communities. We provide free training for HomeFront Help graduates, including background checks, First Aid and CPR certification, and child care best practices. We maintain a roster of Helpers who have completed this training, and families can send care requests directly to them. We never guarantee that a Helper will be available for every request. But over time, we’ve built trust with military families so they can turn to us for support instead of relying on social media.
NNPA: How do you define a trusted caregiver?
OCC Project: For our work, we define a trusted caregiver as anyone who is caring for the child who is not the service member. A trusted caregiver can be a parent, family member, neighbor, friend, nanny, etc. We believe in a very expansive definition.
NNPA: Are there insights or learnings you can share from your work that also would be helpful to parents and trusted caregivers outside of the military?
OCC Project: Military families often work schedules that don’t fit within traditional center-based child care. Long 12+ hour shifts, weekends, holidays, and overnight duty are common. Even those with more standard schedules may have a 5 a.m.mandatory workout several times a week or need to stay late to complete training. This isn’t unique to the military. Shift workers and first responders face many of the same challenges, with hours that traditional care simply doesn’t cover. What we often see is families piecing together multiple forms of care to make it work. That might look like relying on a neighbor in the early morning to get children to a center, then having someone else pick them up and care for them until a parent gets home. The difference for military families is the lack of an established community. Because of frequent moves, families often arrive at a new duty station without a trusted network in place. That gap, the absence of community and trusted support, is exactly why we created the HomeFront Help program.
Is there a fun or enlightening story you can share about outcomes? No need to include real names and/or last names.
Yes! We had a family reach out looking for a trusted caregiver during a holiday break. Their children were enrolled in a Head Start program, but like many families, they still needed care during holidays and scheduled breaks. Through our HomeFrontHelp program, the family sent out a care request, and one of our trained graduates was able to step in and meet that need. A few months later, the family found themselves in the same situation, needing care during another break. This time, instead of coming back to us, they reached out directly to the same HomeFrontHelp graduate. That connection had grown into something more, the Helper had become part of the family’s trusted community.
