Working parents too often confront big information gaps when looking for child care and are forced to rely on friends, neighbors, word of mouth, turnover rates and tours to help make one of the more important choices for their child.

The good news is parents can get help this coming Wednesday by tuning in to a free webinar, “Will You Know High-Quality Child Care When You See It? How to Assess Child Care Settings.”  It is the latest development in efforts by policy groups, researchers and governments across the county to boost child care quality.

The idea is to get two experts, Niki Smidt and Mujaahida Latif , talking about how to find quality child care and then open it up for questions from moms and dads. It’s the brainchild of Child Care Aware Parent Network, a joint venture of the National Association of Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies and the Child Care Bureau, a division of the Department of Health and Human Services.

In Washington, families may soon have an easier time finding quality licensed child care.

State early learning organizations are in the early stages of creating a system that would rate licensed center-based and home-based child care businesses, so that families can get objective information about child care in their community – much like the ratings you can already find for restaurants and hotels.  The system would reward existing high quality licensed child care businesses as well as offer support and resources to all licensed child care professionals who commit to improving their learning environments and the care they provide.

Thrive by Five Washington has partnered with local early learning organizations and more than 60 providers are currently testing pieces of the system in Yakima and White Center. Thanks to funds approved during the 2009 legislative session, Thrive and the state’s Department of Early Learning will support testing of additional pieces of the system in Clark, Kitsap and Spokane counties.

While Thrive helps to develop this new rating system, check out the webinar on July 22 by registering here.

What: “Will You Know High-Quality Child Care When You See It? How to Assess Child Care Settings."

Where: Online.

When:  Working family-friendly time 8:30 p.m., 5:30 p.m. Pacific Standard Time.