Across Southwestern Pennsylvania, employers are navigating a growing reality: child care access directly impacts workforce stability, attendance, and retention.
Trying Together works alongside employers to make child care challenges easier to navigate — not by asking businesses to become child care experts, but by connecting them to practical solutions grounded in the region’s existing network of providers.
Through trusted relationships with local child care programs and tools like AlleghenyChildCare.org, we help employers explore strategies that support working families while strengthening the reliability of their workforce.
Whether you are looking to understand child care-related tax credits, support employees in finding care, or align business investments with community needs, Trying Together serves as a regional partner to help translate complexity into action.
What Is a Child Care Intermediary?
A child care intermediary helps bridge the gap between:
- Employers seeking workforce stability
- Families needing dependable care
- Child care providers working to meet community demand
Rather than operating child care directly, intermediaries:
- Build relationships across sectors
- Reduce complexity for employers
- Strengthen existing child care systems
- Translate workforce needs into practical solutions
Trying Together plays this role in Southwestern Pennsylvania by coordinating across a diverse network of licensed child care providers and community partners to ensure that solutions are grounded in real supply, real relationships, and real community needs.
Our Role in the Region
Trying Together maintains deep, longstanding relationships works closely with providers throughout the broader SWPA region, and deeply with the 600+ licensed child care programs across Allegheny County.
This relational infrastructure allows us to:
- Understand local child care capacity and constraints
- Elevate child care provider voices and expertise
- Support sustainable partnerships between employers and providers
- Align workforce strategies with the realities of child care operations
Our work is grounded in trust and collaboration — ensuring that employer engagement strengthens, rather than disrupts, the child care ecosystem.
Tools That Make Child Care More Accessible
As an intermediary, Trying Together has developed and manages practical tools that simplify how families and employers navigate child care:
AlleghenyChildCare.org
A centralized, user-friendly child care finder tool that helps families locate licensed providers across the region.
How to Find, Choose, and Pay for Child Care
Guidance that supports families in understanding:
- Available care options
- Quality indicators
- Financial supports and payment pathways
These tools translate a complex system into actionable steps — reducing friction for working families and improving workforce reliability for employers.
Supporting Employers Through Connection, Not Complexity
Trying Together helps employers explore workforce-aligned child care strategies without requiring them to become child care operators or experts.
We:
- Connect employers to licensed providers and referral resources
- Identify practical solutions grounded in local supply
- Support implementation alongside employer advisors
- Align child care strategies with recruitment, retention, and productivity goals
This intermediary approach ensures that employer investments strengthen the broader child care landscape while delivering real workforce benefits.
Strengthening the Regional Child Care Ecosystem
Because of our close relationships with providers, families, and community partners, Trying Together is uniquely positioned to:
- Ensure employer strategies are feasible and sustainable
- Support equitable access to care
- Coordinate resources that expand opportunity for working families
By serving as a bridge across systems, Trying Together helps create a more coherent child care landscape — one that supports both economic participation today and a stronger workforce tomorrow.
Connect With Us
To learn how Trying Together can support your organization or community in navigating child care solutions:
Email: info@tryingtogether.org
Explore Tools:
How to Find, Choose, and Pay for Child Care
Educational Improvement Tax Credit Program
