In addition to the primary goal of helping families meet their child care needs, resource and referral agencies may recruit providers, provide training and technical assistance, do intake and eligibility checks for families receiving a child care subsidy, and inspect family child care homes and centers. They may also be used as the contact point for families needing a wide range of services, including crisis counseling and access to other human services providers. In addition, many states also use the resource and referral agency as a bridge between the public sector, private organizations and businesses or other private agencies. The agencies have been funded to assist families to make informed choices for child care, to provide information and materials for both consumers and providers of child care, and to act as local clearinghouses of information, training and assistance in their community. To serve parents, each agency maintains lists of licensed child care providers in the community and lists of licensed exempt center-based programs operated by public school districts.
Many programs have toy lending libraries for child care providers.
Programs provide information about recruitment, training and licensing of new child care providers and training opportunities for both providers and parents. The program provides assistance to low-income families seeking both child care subsidies and providers. The resource and referral services were created to promote quality through consumer education, and to help increase the supply of child care by recruiting providers and providing technical assistance to businesses and local providers. This service is made available to families as the Child Care Division of InfoLine, a statewide toll-free information, referral and crisis line. This resource provides all callers with a central point of entry to the human services systems in the state.