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Whether you are new to parenthood or your family is new to Harvard, you may have questions about child care in and around Cambridge. Harvard understands the important role child care can play in families’ lives, and has made major investments in access to child care from renovating and expanding child care centers to improving the university’s scholarship programs to creating new ways for parents to find student caregivers.
Whether you are a prospective or current member of the Harvard community, this site will give you basic information about child-care centers on Harvard's Cambridge, Allston and Longwood campuses, provide you with resources for finding group care or in-home care and help you connect with other members of the community.
If you are a prospective or current faculty member, we encourage you to visit the Office of the Senior Vice Provost for Faculty Development and Diversity for more information about child care resources and faculty work/life balance at Harvard.
Current Harvard affiliates (faculty, staff, postdoctoral fellows and students) are also invited to log onto Harvard's Child Care Bulletin Board where you can post questions, read tips and connect with other parents and parents-to-be in the Harvard community. You are also encouraged to visit the Web Access to Care at Harvard (WATCH) Portal, which connects faculty, staff and student parents with student babysitters within the Harvard community.
Child-care in Massachusetts is highly regulated by state law to achieve high quality and safety standards, which means that affordable, high-quality child-care can be in short supply in the greater Boston area, depending on the age of your child. Although affiliation with Harvard University does not guarantee admission to Harvard-affiliated child-care centers, you can increase your odds for securing the type of child care that works best for your family by starting to look early and keeping your options open. It is helpful to visit and apply to child-care centers as much as one year in advance and to consider family day care and in-home care. Although the latter may require less lead time, it is a more intensive process of identifying and reviewing the options that fit your family best.
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