SAN DIEGO, Jan. 18, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — While COVID continues to ravage the nation, working families are struggling as thousands of Child Care providers have closed their doors. This has left millions of desperate parents who are either juggling working from home while watching the kids or who are quitting work all together. In an effort to help bolster the nation’s crippled economy and get parents back in the workforce, TOOTRiS has expanded its on-demand Child Care platform to all 50 states. With more than 180,000 licensed providers currently on its platform, TOOTRiS touts the largest network of available, real-time Child Care options in the nation.

The expansion provides much-needed resources and tools to thousands of parents, providers and employers at a time when communities across the nation face an alarming Child Care deficit.

“American families are in trouble. If we don’t fix the broken Child Care sector, our economy will not rebound and working parents – especially women – will continue to suffer the consequences,” said TOOTRiS Founder and CEO Alessandra Lezama.

Currently, a majority of US families do not have access to affordable and quality Child Care, primarily due to one or more of the following reasons: a) they can’t afford it, b) they don’t know where to go to search or can’t find open enrollments, or c) the only programs that are available to them don’t meet their needs.

“We applaud TOOTRiS for introducing an innovative way of helping working parents and employers easily connect with real-time availability of affordable quality Child Care,” said Cindy Lehnhoff, Director of the National Child Care Association, a nationwide nonprofit that advocates and promotes high quality Child Care. “This type of universal online platform also levels the playing field for Family Child Care providers and allows them to stay afloat during these uncertain times.”

TOOTRiS connects parents, providers and employers in real-time, enabling:

• Parents to search near their home or work, using filters to find daycare or non-standard hour care that fits their needs and budgetary requirements, even for temporary slots and drop-ins – all accessible for online via desktop, tablet, or a mobile app.
• Providers to have access to free tools and resources needed to grow their programs and boost enrollments, while automating the administrative functions such as payments.
• Employers – big and small – to have affordable and seamless solutions to offer Child Care as a Benefit, which is critical for attracting and retaining talent at a time when there are 9.2 million unfilled jobs across the US.

“Child Care is a business issue and a workforce enabler. Through TOOTRiS, we can re-engineer a scalable and thriving Child Care system of the future, while redesigning the workplace to be more equitable and family friendly,” Lezama said. “This is the future of work, and key to our nation’s ability to compete on a global scale.”

The nationwide TOOTRiS rollout is a milestone for the startup, founded in 2019 to transform Child Care so that every working parent — especially women — has the same opportunity for advancement by having access to affordable, high quality Child Care; and so that every child, regardless of household income, has the same opportunity to early childhood education that can ensure their kindergarten readiness, and academic success.

About TOOTRiS
TOOTRiS is reinventing Child Care, making it convenient, affordable and on-demand. As the world shifts to digitalized services, TOOTRiS helps parents and providers connect and transact in real-time, empowering working parents – especially women – to secure quality Child Care, while allowing providers to unlock their potential and fully monetize their program. It is the only system in today’s marketplace that tracks, publishes and forecasts Child Care availability in real-time and is accessible in multiple languages. TOOTRiS’ unique technology enables employers to provide fully managed Child Care Benefits, giving their workforce the flexibility and family support paramount to regaining employee productivity and increasing their ROI. Visit tootris.com for more information.