You just got orders for a permanent change of station (PCS). What do you do first?

Do a quick search to see how long it takes to get to the nearest coffee drive-thru? Probably.

But next, you start investigating schools and child-care options. You begin crowdsourcing on social media to learn all you can about your new duty station as an incoming family. As soon as you have orders in hand, you reach out to the child development center (CDC) and learn they have a lengthy waitlist for infants.

If this sounds familiar, you may find help with a new pilot program initiated by the Department of Defense (DoD) offering greater flexibility for families seeking child care. The program will grant fee assistance to military families for full-time, in-home child-care providers. This program allows in-home providers to be used for rotating shifts and weekend care to meet the non-traditional, full-time schedules of military families. The pilot will cover a minimum of 30 hours to a maximum of 60 hours of child care weekly and is not limited to Monday through Friday or time of day.

Child Care Aware of America, a third-party administrator, oversees the program to verify Service member and child-care provider eligibility and provide the fee assistance payments to the approved providers. It  may be a good idea to reach out to Military OneSource tax consultants with questions about the tax implications of employing in-home child-care providers.

Participants must meet one of the following criteria for program eligibility:

• Single or dual active-duty couple
• Activated Guard or Reserve member with spouse employed full-time or enrolled full-time in postsecondary institution
• Participants must be on the waitlist in the five regions in the pilot program. Families can create an account at MilitaryChildCare.com and submit their request for in-home care if they are not yet on the waitlist but need child care.

In its first year, the pilot will be offered in five regions that have the highest demand and the longest waitlists for child care. These locations are the National Capital Region; Hawaii; San Diego, California; Norfolk, Virginia; and San Antonio, Texas.

There may still be help available to you and your family even if you don’t live in one of the pilot program areas. Robyn was living in the National Capital Region where child care is expensive and difficult to access. Read her story to see how the Army Fee Assistance Program administered by Child Care Aware of America provided her answer for child-care assistance.

The DoD provides support to Military families through a range of child-care solutions. On-installation care is available at child development centers, certified family child-care homes, and before and after-school care programs. Other options include fee assistance for community-based child care and free access to a subscription service that connects families with flexible, hourly care. Click here for more information on resources available to your family.

MilSpouse Money Mission® is a Department of Defense resource that offers FREE personal financial education specifically geared toward spouses. There is a Money Ready guide for various stages of financial life, a MilLife Milestones section to help you through the big moments in your military journey, a blog, spouse videos, quizzes, calculators and more!