What is LINCC?

The Local Investment in Child Care project, or LINCC, promotes childcare as an essential community infrastructure that supports local economic development.

The LINCC project was launched following the release in 2002 of an economic impact report (EIR), the Economic Impact of the Childcare Industry in Orange County.  You may read the Executive Summary and the full report by clicking on these links:

Key findings from the EIR include the following:

On business and productivity ...

• Childcare supports Orange County's workforce productivity and self-sufficiency. By 2010, 85% of the labor force will consist of parents. Currently, the parents of 59,017 children are able to work because of childcare services.
• Childcare impacts workforce development. Childcare is needed during education and training activities as individuals prepare to enter the workforce or improve their skills. Higher quality childcare has a positive effect on mothers' educational attainment and employment status.
• Licensed childcare contributes to a stable and productive workforce by lowering absenteeism and turnover rates. Employees using a Nationsbank child care subsidy program had 1/3 the turnover of non-participants, and American Express Financial Advisors found that back-up childcare services recovered 105 days of productivity.
  In Orange County, licensed childcare enables workers to earn approximately $828 million annually, with combined productivity effects amounting to a $6.7 billion contribution to industry output.

Despite these positive economic effects, the childcare industry has not been able to expand to meet the needs of Orange County's growing population.  Childcare supply has expanded at just 1/2 of 1% per year during the past 3 years. Forty-three percent of parents in a 1998 survey indicated that lack of acceptable childcare was a barrier to employment. Affordable childcare is out of reach of many families. A family of three earning a monthly median-level income of $3,900, will pay more than $1,000 per month for care for two preschoolers, more than 1/4 of the families income.

Without policies and investments to strengthen and expand the childcare infrastructure, Orange County's productivity and workforce development will be constrained.

LINCC's activities aims to

• build the childcare capacity in Orange County to meet the growing need,  and
• strengthen the business operations of childcare programs so that these programs are successful.

What are the current LINCC activities in Orange County?

• Business Training Academy for Child Care Professionals
  A training program to help center-based and family child care professionals develop business acumen
• Community Economic Development
  An organized effort to work with municipalities to include child care in community development planning; to address land use issues regarding child care and to retain and expand child care capacity
• Public Relations and Advocacy
  Organizing to present a clear message to business and the community about the importance of quality child care to the Orange County economy and to the success of our children.
• Orange County Childcare Connections Collaborative
  The Success By 6 LINCC project provides staff support to this collaborative which "seeks to create a system in Orange County in which business, the community development and childcare sectors work together to develop quality sustainable chidcare facitlities to meet the needs of children ages 0 to 13 and their families. The collaboration serves as a clearinghouse for childcare facitlities developent and aims to achieve favorable land us e and building regulations financial resources and a childcare industry that understands business management."
  Collaborative partners include the Children & Families Commission of Orange County, the Orange County Childcare and Development Planning Council, the office of the Orange County Childcare Coordinator, Children's Home Society of California and the Public Law Center.  This collaboration is funded by Affordable Building's for Children's Development (ABCD) Constructing Connections.  A program of the Low Income Investment Fund with major funding from First 5 California.