Closing the Child Care Gap for Military Families in Colorado Springs

A national nonprofit led from right here in the Springs is training vetted neighbors to watch military kids when the duty day does not match the daycare schedule.

Every parent in the Pikes Peak region knows the child care math does not work. In El Paso County, the gap between the number of children who need care and the number of licensed slots available runs to roughly 16,000 spots. That is a hard number for any family. For a military family, it gets harder.

Add a 4 a.m. report time. Add a training rotation that takes one parent out of the house for three weeks. Add a PCS move that drops a family into Colorado Springs in July with no grandparents, no neighbors they know yet, and a spot on a Child Development Center waitlist that may not open until spring. Add a spouse who wants to work but cannot find care that matches a schedule nobody can predict.

That is the problem the Operation Child Care Project, known locally as the OCC Project, was built to solve.

What Is the OCC Project? A Nonprofit Tackling the Military Child Care Crisis

The OCC Project is a national 501(c)(3) nonprofit founded by Kayla Corbitt, an Army spouse who now lives in Colorado Springs. Her background is in crisis counseling and victim advocacy, and the organization she built reflects that: it starts with the family in front of it and works outward.

The mission is simple to say and difficult to do. Every military family should have access to safe, reliable, and flexible child care. Not just families stationed at large installations. Not just families who happen to land near the front of a waitlist. Every family, including active duty, reserve, retired service members, and Department of Defense civilians.

In its seven years, the organization reports serving more than 4,000 families.

Four Ways the OCC Project Supports Military Families

Case management for families who need a plan

A family calls in, and a case manager actually sits down with them. There is an intake conversation, a needs assessment, a written plan, and follow up as circumstances change. This is available to military and veteran families nationwide, regardless of where they are stationed.

Resource navigation through military child care fee assistance

Military child care funding is a maze of fee assistance programs, subsidies, and eligibility rules that shift depending on branch, rank, and duty status. Families are usually pointed to MilitaryChildCare.com, the Department of Defense's official child care portal, and then left to figure out the rest on their own. The OCC Project helps families actually work through it and find the money that is already sitting there for them.

Resources and education for parents and providers

Guides, tools, and training for both families and providers.

Advocacy for better military child care policy

The organization takes what it learns from families to policy conversations about how the military supports child care.

HomeFront Help: Trained, Background-Checked Child Care Helpers in Colorado Springs

The program that brought the OCC Project to local attention is HomeFront Help, and Colorado Springs is one of only two places in the country where it currently operates.

Here is the idea. Instead of waiting for new licensed centers that take years to build and staff, HomeFront Help trains and vets people who are already in the community. A neighbor. A retired teacher. A military spouse with an empty afternoon. They are called Helpers, and they provide the kind of care that licensed centers are not built to provide: emergency care, occasional care, part-time care, and coverage for the odd hours military life actually runs on.

It is worth being clear about what a Helper is and is not. Helpers are not licensed child care providers, and HomeFront Help is not a daycare. They are vetted, trained community members who fill the gaps around the formal system.

What training and background checks every HomeFront Helper completes

The vetting is substantial. Every Helper completes:

• FBI and state criminal history background checks, plus child safety screening

• CPR and First Aid certification

• 40 hours of provider training

• Special needs and behavioral training

• Infant safe sleep practices

• Emergency and disaster preparedness

• Child abuse prevention and reporting

• Bias awareness and inclusion training

• Two hours of consulting with care experts

• Self employment training

All of it is free to the Helper. Private sponsors and the Bainum Family Foundation cover training costs and provide scholarships and stipends. Child care during the training day is reimbursed, so becoming a Helper does not require finding child care in order to learn how to provide child care.

How the Colorado Springs pilot got started

The program launched first at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida in November 2024. Within months, 26 trained Helpers there had supported more than 150 families with over 550 days of care. Colorado Springs was chosen for the next pilot, with its first in-person Helper training cohort held in summer 2025, a launch KOAA News 5 covered as southern Colorado's answer to the military child care gap. Across both states, more than 70 Helpers have now been trained.

The Colorado Springs version comes with some local additions: a curated roadmap of family friendly activities around the region for Helpers to use with the kids in their care, a lead Helper role so new Helpers have someone to call, continuing education opportunities, and quarterly check-in calls for the whole cohort.

For a region that hosts Fort Carson, Peterson Space Force Base, Schriever Space Force Base, Cheyenne Mountain Space Force Station, and the Air Force Academy, a program like this is not a nice extra. It is infrastructure.

How Colorado Springs Military Families Can Request Child Care Help

Start at occproject.org/homefronthelp, where you can submit an intake form to request a Helper or see who is available in your area. If your situation is more complicated than one afternoon of coverage, ask about case management instead. That is the door for families who need a plan rather than a babysitter.

Rates are arranged between the family and the individual Helper, so ask about cost during intake. You can also reach the organization directly at info@occproject.org.

How to Become a HomeFront Helper in Colorado Springs

This is the part worth passing along to the retired teacher on your street, the empty nester at your church, or the spouse in your unit who has been looking for flexible work that means something.

Applications go through the HomeFront Help page. The process is an online application, a set of online modules, and one in person cohort training day. Helpers receive an incentive on completion, plus bonuses for referrals and continued participation. Cohort dates change, so check the site for the next Colorado Springs training.

Why Neighbor-to-Neighbor Child Care Matters in a Military Town

There is something quietly hopeful about this model. It does not wait for a building. It does not wait for a policy change, though the OCC Project is working on those too. It looks at a community that already contains hundreds of capable, caring adults and asks a reasonable question: what if we trained them, screened them, and connected them to the families two streets over who are running out of options?

In a city where so many families arrive as strangers and leave in three years, neighbors who show up are not a small thing. They may be the whole thing.

Learn more: occproject.org | HomeFront Help | info@occproject.org