photo by: Austin Hornbostel/Journal-World

The Community Children's Center's Early Childhood Community Center will eventually be located at 346 Maine St., currently the Medical Arts Building & Pharmacy.

A new program through Douglas County’s Community Children’s Center will allow parents to find reliable child care on short notice, all through an app.

On Wednesday, the Community Children’s Center announced its “Occasional Care” program for Douglas County families. An occasional care program uses a third party to find sitters. That party recruits, interviews, checks references, conducts background checks and connects families to sitters based on availability, interests and experience. Families pay that agency a fee for the service and pay the sitters directly for caring for their children.

The program uses Enginehire, a digital platform that allows parents to browse through profiles of vetted sitters, check their availability and directly book child-care services.

“Finding child-care can be incredibly stressful, especially for busy families or newcomers to the community,” Will Averill, the Community Children’s Center’s director of communications and development, said in a news release about the program. “Our Occasional Care program aims to alleviate that stress by offering a reliable and convenient way to find vetted sitters through our digital platform, (Enginehire).”

According to a page of frequently asked questions about the program on the Community Children’s Center website, the Occasional Care program will operate through a subscription system. Recurring subscription charges from $25 to $450 apply to options ranging from one week to one year, allowing for unlimited bookings during the subscription period. Users can also pay a nonrecurring fee of $10 per booking.

The program is offering a free booking — though sitters will still need to be paid separately — using the promo code “CCCWELCOME” during its first month of operation.

More information about the program is available on the Community Children’s Center website, as well as a link to register on Enginehire.