```{tags} Parents-and-Carers, Participant-Diversity, Scholarships
```

(childcare)=
# Childcare

✅ Offer financial support for childcare.
 - Build it into your budget. 
   - Link it to sponsorships, or university partners, or make part of the registration fee from all attendees go towards providing childcare support as service. 
    - Add an option to the registration, e.g.: "Donate $20 to help with childcare costs."
    - Collect the data on the registration form. How many people would make use of childcare services or grants?
  - In general, the two major options are either to 1) award childcare grants (people decide how to spend it, e.g. on their home babysitter) or 2) provide on-site services.

## Grants 

   - Grants to cover childcare costs are highly popular with attendees. (On-site childcare services can be costly for attendees because of additional travel costs for bringing children along.) 
      - You might survey your participants to determine their preference for grants vs. on-site childcare services.
      - Be sure to consider issues like whether grant recipients will need to submit an invoice or receipt from someone (the childcare provider) with a Tax ID.
  - For those who do bring kids to the event/conference:
      - Provide cost-free access to the conference center/venue for caregivers/babysitters. 
        - This allows caregivers to come to the conference for e.g. infant hand-offs (for nursing, for example) as opposed to parents losing additional time walking back to hotel rooms.
      
## On-Site Services
 
- There are companies that provide childcare at conferences. While NumFOCUS makes no specific endorsements, we did find these companies in our research who are providing event-based childcare:
  - US-only:
    - [UrbanSitter](https://www.urbansitter.com/) provides a platform for finding babysitters. (*This link is only accessible within the United States*)
  - US & Canada:
    - [Kiddie Corp](http://www.kiddiecorp.com/)
  - International:
    - [Care.com](https://www.care.com/)
    - [Corporate Kids Events](https://conferencechildcare.com/)
    - [Accent](http://www.accentoca.com/)

- Another possibility is to organize a "parallel" conference for older children
  - E.g. [coding for kids as at PyCon UK](http://2017.pyconuk.org/education/)

**Further reading:**

- [Geek Feminism Wiki Childcare](http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Childcare)
- [SRCCON childcare](https://web.archive.org/web/20160810112024/http://srccon.org/childcare)
- [Providing conference childcare](https://adacamp.org/adacamp-toolkit/childcare/)