Rethinking Essential Services in the Wake of the COVID-19 Health Crisis

During the COVID-19 global pandemic, Cook Children’s Health Care System needed a way to ensure that all employees had a reliable childcare option. This advocacy note details how Child Study Center, an applied behavior analysis facility in North Texas, transitioned into Camp Cook, a free-of-charge childcare facility that operates weekdays from 6:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. Closing the doors on our billable services allowed us to open them to the essential health care workers who were fighting on the front lines against COVID-19. Here we describe the redeployment of employees across 3 departments in an effort to ease the burden of childcare within our local community.