Central Coast Child Care Facilities Action Network
The Child Care Facilities Action Network unites six Central Coast counties (San Benito, Santa Cruz, Monterey, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, and Ventura) around a shared set of outcomes: fewer regulatory barriers, faster permitting, and more child care colocated with housing across the region.
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The Action Network
The Santa Barbara County Child Care Facilities Master Plan set a goal of 3,000 new child care spaces by 2030, and land use policy is what makes progress like that possible.
Co-locating child care with housing is one of the sharpest tools available to achieve this goal: when new residential and mixed-use developments build in child care space from the start, families get access closer to home, providers get lower development costs, and housing and community development goals move forward together. Every center or family child care space created this way serves a community for decades. Advancing these policy changes jurisdiction by jurisdiction, rather than county by county, is how we remove the structural barriers standing between plans and open doors.
Our Shared Goal
The network brings together child care advocates, planning staff, and community leaders through training, peer learning, and a shared regional survey. By June 2028, at least 60 percent of participating jurisdictions will show real, measurable progress:
Fewer zoning and regulatory barriers
Faster, clearer permitting pathways
More child care co-located with housing and other community spaces
Stronger local implementation support
Cities & Counties: Take the First Step
Join the six-county effort to assess your current land use policies through the six-county land use survey, take part in planner sessions built around peer learning and best practices, and move child care land use forward with an ongoing Specialist partnership supporting you every step of the way.
What Participation Looks Like
Take part in the six-county land use survey and see how your policies compare on zoning, permitting, parking, fees, and colocation.
Join planner sessions built around real peer learning and colocation strategies that work.
Walk away with a written, jurisdiction-specific action plan tailored to your community.
Gain an ongoing partner, a Child Care Facilities Specialist to help turn your plan into practice.
Timeline:
Land Use Survey: September - November 2026
City/County Planning Sessions: January - April 2027
Model Policy Development & Advocacy Mobilization: June 2027 - June 2028
Child Care Facilities Specialist Series Overview
Nine months.
Eighteen Specialists.
One Regional Community
Specialists who will engage in 9 months of peer learning, fieldwork, land-use surveys, coaching, and sessions with planning departments.
Using the Child Care Systems Lab framework, participants work and learn alongside peers from across the region who are navigating the same policy landscape from different vantage points. Those cross-county relationships and a shared regional advocacy plan will shape the foundation for lasting policy change.
This community of practice is grounded by the Santa Barbara County Child Care Facilities Master Plan and Toolkit, as well as a land-use survey developed specifically for the Central Coast.
Information Session: August 25th, 2026
Apply by September 1st
Applicants who apply before August 21 may be eligible for an honorarium or organizational participant incentive.
Sessions: September 2026 to March 2027 *
Coaching Sessions: March 2027 to May 2027 *
*See application for dates*
Thanks to the generous support of regional contributors, there is no cost to participants for the Child Care Facilities Specialist Training and Community of Practice (Specialist series).
What To Expect
6 training sessions, 90 minutes each via Zoom.
Each session delivers 30 minutes of structured content grounded in the Santa Barbara County Child Care Facilities Master Plan and Toolkit, as well as data from the six-county regional land use survey developed specifically for the Central Coast.
45 minutes of community of practice discussion where you connect the material to active policy work in your jurisdiction, and a 15-minute closing commitment round.
3 coaching sessions, 90 minutes each via Zoom.
These are participant-driven and facilitator-guided. You submit your jurisdiction challenges and questions one week in advance. The agenda is built from what you bring, not from a set curriculum. Come prepared to work through live problems with peer input.
2–3 hours of fieldwork between every session.
Full attendance expected; sessions are not recorded because the live discussion is the core of the experience.
Miss a session? You’ll receive the meeting materials and you can connect with a peer to debrief. The Hive, our community platform, carries the work between sessions — post findings, complete portfolio artifacts, log commitments, and stay accountable to your cohort.
Topics
Why Facilities Matter and How Land Use Works
The Six-County Landscape - Survey Data and the Dashboard
What Good Policy Looks Like
Helping Navigate the Permit Process
Child Care and Developments
Putting It Into Practice