About

About the Early Care & Education Map

Created by Shift Research Lab, the Early Care and Education Map leverages neighborhood data from Denver’s seven-county metro region to show where quality, licensed early care and education resources are located relative to where young children live.

This tool helps providers, funders, policymakers and advocates better understand the existing landscape of early care and education providers, and it can inform decision-making related to public and private sector investment, provider expansion, spending of quality improvement dollars, and identifying where additional subsidies are needed.

We see great potential for this tool to serve as a more comprehensive early care and education data resource, and we look forward to partnering with the early care and education community on its continued expansion, including adding additional data as it becomes available and potentially expanding its geographic reach to the rest of the state.

To learn more about the first phase of this tool’s development, read about our stakeholder engagement process and the methodology for calculating early care and education accessibility. For help navigating the Metro Denver Early Care and Education Map, watch our series of video tutorials that demonstrate how to use the tool. 

About Shift Research Lab

Shift Research Lab, a program of The Piton Foundation, transforms neighborhood-level data into actionable information that improves the social sector’s ability to serve Colorado’s low income communities. Through our products and services, we offer free data and analysis via digital data tools, perform objective research to support community change initiatives, and provide technical assistance to help organizations build their capacity to use data. Learn more.

About The Piton Foundation

The Piton Foundation, which is part of Gary Community Investments, is a private foundation established in 1976 by Denver oilman Sam Gary. It is committed to improving the lives of Colorado's low-income children and their families by increasing access to quality early childhood and youth development opportunities and fostering healthy family and community environments. Learn more.