Access to quality and affordable childcare has been recognized throughout the United States as a barrier to workforce. In 2024, Tomah Health, in cooperation with the Tomah Chamber and Rural Wisconsin Health Cooperative, spearheaded a community-driven process to assess the childcare needs in Tomah and create an action plan to improve the childcare infrastructure in our community. We have established the following purpose statement for our work: Establish and guide a community childcare working group to define the childcare challenge in Tomah and work collaboratively towards strengthening the local childcare infrastructure.
Some childcare providers can be found in this Tomah Regulated Childcare Directory.
Actions
Through a series of meetings with large area employers and childcare providers, surveys were developed to collect data and begin the assessment of the challenges facing families, employers, and childcare providers.
A summary of the Childcare Kickoff Presentation can be found here: Childcare Kickoff Presentation v2
The findings of those initial surveys can be found in this presentation: Childcare Survey Presentation v2
From those early discussions and surveys, the following opportunities were discovered: Tomah Childcare Opportunities
Next Steps
We have identified two immediate and actionable goals to begin collaborating on.
Goal one: Childcare availability in Tomah will be expanded by 20% by the end of 2026 through growing new collaborations. This will require Tomah to add 66 new childcare slots and preserve its existing 330 slots.
Goal two: Support for all existing family and group childcare providers in Tomah will increase in order to ensure local providers are sustainable over the long term.
Childcare Initiative Workgroup Goals
