Marketing a Resource and Referral Resource Room to Child Care Providers and Parents.

Recognizing the importance of providing parents and child care providers with current information on early childhood education, care, and support, this practicum project evaluated the design and implementation of a 10-week strategy to market a child care resource and referral agency resource room to child care providers and parents. Observations, surveys, questionnaires, and interviews were used to document the low use of the resource room by staff and the lack of parent knowledge regarding the room's existence. The strategies used to market the resource room included creating a staff committee with diverse interests to take responsibility for marketing, maintaining, and displaying the resource room; informing parents about the resource room when they called the agency; marketing through media such as brochures, newsletters, and displays set up in community libraries or bulletin boards; and creating web pages to target corporate clients. Daily logs were used to record use of the resource room. Results suggest that the staff training was effective. Parents were informed about the resource when they called the service. Providers made great use of the room after they learned about its existence. Through marketing procedures, providers learned about new materials in the resource room and their utilization. They were likely to visit during newly extended hours. (Six appendices include the staff questionnaire, provider phone survey, resource center diagram, customer benefits, materials needed, and calendar implementation plan. Contains 11 references.) (Author/KB)