A family looking for child care needs more than a list of programs. They need enough information to identify a fit and a clear way to contact the provider. Wonderschool Child Care Finder helps government partners connect family search to action through program discovery and provider–family communication.
For Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) lead agencies and child care resource and referral (CCR&R) teams, that journey sits within a broader responsibility: supporting informed family choice and understanding where access remains difficult. A useful finder connects the consumer-education experience with practical next steps without treating a listing as proof of an available space.
Wonderschool-powered child care finders in Florida and New Mexico ranked #1 and #2, respectively, in The Hunt Institute’s National Child Care Finder Scale, released in February 2026. Both earned an Exemplary rating. The recognition highlights the value of connecting useful program information with a clear path from search to enrollment.
Read how Wonderschool’s partners ranked #1 and #2. Explore The Hunt Institute’s National Child Care Finder Scale.
A finder should help a family move from a broad search to an informed conversation with a provider. Consider a parent looking for infant care near work. Finding a nearby program is only the beginning: the parent also needs to understand the ages served, care schedule, program information, and how to ask about fit and availability.
Florida’s My Florida Schools portal connects early learning discovery with practical next steps. Families can explore child care centers, family child care homes, and school-based early learning programs, then narrow their search by location, ages served, program type, and offerings such as Voluntary Prekindergarten (VPK). Program pages help families learn about a provider and make contact. Families can browse without an account; scheduling tours and saving favorites requires an account. For agencies, the example is a family-facing experience organized around the choices parents need to make.
Explore Florida’s early learning finder.
Indiana’s Wonderschool-powered Early Learning Marketplace helps families search by location and filter by age range, availability, schedule, program type, budget and vouchers, Paths to QUALITY level, and languages supported. Providers can maintain profiles and openings, communicate with families, and offer tours. The Marketplace is distinct from Indiana’s regulatory Child Care Finder, which provides licensing-performance information. For CCDF and referral teams, that distinction matters: family discovery and provider connections complement, rather than replace, the state’s regulatory information.
Explore Indiana’s Early Learning Marketplace.
New Mexico’s Wonderschool-powered Child Care Finder brings program results, list and map views, and family-focused filters into one experience. Families can narrow options by age, schedule, program setting, quality rating, languages supported, and budget or child care assistance. The current finder also identifies participating Universal Child Care providers with a badge and links families to state information. These details help parents compare options before contacting a program. Families should still confirm current openings and the steps required to begin care.
Explore New Mexico’s Child Care Finder.
Wonderschool brings program discovery and provider–family communication into the same family journey. Finder reporting can include engagement measures such as leads, tour requests, scheduled tours, and recorded enrollments. Agencies should confirm the reporting available in their implementation and the definition behind each measure.
These are operational signals, not interchangeable outcomes. A listing view is not a tour; a tour is not an enrollment; a recorded enrollment is not, by itself, an independent measure of regional access. Reviewing each step separately helps teams ask better questions about where families may need additional support.
Those questions complement CCDF priorities around consumer education, parental choice, and equal access. Technology supports the agency’s work; it does not replace the agency’s policies or establish compliance on its own.
No. A listing helps a family discover a program. Current availability, program fit, and any assistance eligibility still need to be confirmed through the applicable process.
No. A finder supports discovery and contact. Wonderschool Coordinated Enrollment addresses applications and placement workflows across participating programs. A community may need both.
Not by itself. Search and engagement data can inform questions about demand, but agencies should consider it alongside current capacity, ages served, schedules, geography, and other local evidence.
Explore Wonderschool Child Care Finder, or talk with our team about your agency’s family-navigation goals.
Find a child care program that meets your needs from thousands of listings using our Child Care Finder. If you're a provider, create a listing to get discovered by families near you!