The Iowa Women’s Foundation will host its first Iowa Solutions Summit focusing on one of six barriers facing Iowa women: child care. The summit will be held from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on Dec. 6 at the Prairie Meadows Events and Conference Center in Des Moines. The event will feature six breakout sessions led by experts with solutions to address child care shortages, ranging from school district and business partnerships to wage enhancement and on-site child care programs. In 2016, IWF identified access to child care as the most crucial barrier to women’s self-sufficiency. IWF has received both state and national recognition for its efforts to combat the child care desert and expand accessibility to affordable, quality child care. According to a news release, the upcoming Iowa Solutions Summit underscores and extends the IWF’s commitment to the child care industry in past years, which includes efforts such as partnering with business leaders across the state in 2018 to form the Iowa Business and Child Care Coalition; leading the Building Community Child Care Solutions collaborative; serving on Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds’ Child Care Task Force; and hiring a full-time Employer Engagement Director, Sheri Penney. To explore the agenda, see session details and register for early-bird tickets, read more here.