A Connected Data Foundation for Early Childhood Systems
Early childhood data often lives in fragmented systems, making it difficult to understand which children are being served, where services are available, and other critical information needed to help children and their families. CUSP Foundation integrates information about children, families, providers, and programs into a single source of truth.
CUSP Foundation helps users:
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Understand child care supply, demand, and service utilization -
Identify unmet needs and gaps in access to child care
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Monitor provider capacity and workforce trends
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Analyze outcomes across programs and populations
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Make faster, more informed policy and investment decisions that improve outcomes for children and families
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Track progress and demonstrate return on investment to policymakers, funders, and other stakeholders
What Is CUSP Foundation?
CUSP Foundation is the connected data layer that links child, family, provider, and program
information into one system. It delivers the supply, demand, access, and service insights states need
to understand their landscape, strengthen programs, and support families more effectively.
What makes CUSP Foundation different?
A whole population approach
Traditional early childhood softwares provide a limited view of children already enrolled in individual programs, making it difficult to understand participation and needs across the broader early childhood system. CUSP Foundation models the entire child population, helping agencies understand who is being served, who is not, and where gaps in access remain.
CUSP Standard Modules
Standard Modules provide the primary tools agencies need to integrate data and start supporting coordinated, data-informed decision-making.
Core is 3Si's proprietary integrated data model and the technology that sets CUSP apart from other Early Childhood Integrated Data Systems (ECIDS). It transforms data from multiple agencies and programs into a single, governed foundation, creating a consistent, trusted view of the entire early childhood system.
Catalyst is the primary workspace for exploring, organizing, and sharing CUSP analytics, dashboards, reports, and data resources. With Catalyst, you can easily find the tools you need, without the time and effort it takes to build them from scratch.
Catalyst also helps agencies get more value from their data by enabling agencies to share findings, learn from peers, and benchmark progress.
The CUSP Starter Kit delivers immediate value with pre-configured charts, maps, and reports that can be deployed rapidly with minimal setup. The Starter Kit’s interactive tools and filters make it easy and intuitive to move from high-level insights to detailed analysis. Designed for analysts and program administrators, the Starter Kit module helps clients quickly gain a clearer picture of where their system stands today and where gaps are growing.
Extend Your Insights: Population, Supply, and Gap Analytics
CUSP Foundation also includes modules that transform integrated data into targeted insights for planning, service design, and access analysis — covering the child population your state serves, the supply needed to serve them, and the gaps between the two.
Provider Analytics helps agencies understand the availability, stability, and distribution of child care services across their city or state. By analyzing integrated data on licensing, workforce, subsidies, and other information, agencies can identify emerging supply challenges, anticipate future needs, and target resources where they will have the greatest impact.
Gap Analytics helps agencies understand where children and families face the greatest barriers to accessing child care. By combining service, population, and community data, the Gap Analytics enables agencies to identify unmet needs, understand the factors contributing to access challenges, and prioritize investments where they will make the greatest difference.
Access Desert Analytics helps agencies identify communities where families have limited or no realistic access to child care services. Built on Core, Access Desert Analytics moves beyond simple desert-or-not classifications to measure shortage severity across a continuum. Agencies can analyze gaps by age group and geography to understand where shortages are most severe and which children and families are most affected. Access Desert Analytics provides a geographically precise view of where child care supply falls short of community need, complementing Gap Analytics' ability to reveal patterns of unmet need across populations.
The Child Care Fact Sheet transforms complex data into clear, compelling one-page reports that help policymakers, funders, community leaders, and advocates understand needs and take action. Use the Child Care Fact Sheet to communicate supply needs and trends to policymakers, funders, and community members.
Extend Your Insights: Population, Supply, and Gap Analytics
CUSP Foundation also includes modules that transform integrated data into targeted insights for planning, service design, and access analysis — covering the child population your state serves, the supply needed to serve them, and the gaps between the two.
Provider Analytics
Provider Analytics helps agencies understand the availability, stability, and distribution of child care services across their city or state. By analyzing integrated data on licensing, workforce, subsidies, and other information, agencies can identify emerging supply challenges, anticipate future needs, and target resources where they will have the greatest impact.
With Provider Analytics, agencies can:
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Monitor provider openings, closures, and workforce trends to detect potential supply disruptions before they become critical -
Assess provider stability and capacity utilization to support retention and expansion strategies
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Compare supply patterns across regions to prioritize investments and target resources to where the need is greatest
Access Desert Analytics
Access Desert Analytics helps agencies identify communities where families have limited or no realistic access to child care services. Built on Core, Access Desert Analytics moves beyond simple desert-or-not classifications to measure shortage severity across a continuum. Agencies can analyze gaps by age group and geography to understand where shortages are most severe and which children and families are most affected.
With Access Desert Analytics, agencies can:
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Identify child care access deserts and measure the severity of local shortages at multiple geographic levels—from ZIP codes and municipalities to counties, school districts, and legislative districts
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Track how access deserts change over time as providers enter, exit, expand, or reduce capacity—and see the direct impact of provider churn on community access status Overlay community-level context measures — including indices of social vulnerability, child opportunity, and socio-economic need — to identify where capacity shortages compound with broader structural constraints.
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Overlay community-level context measures — including indices of social vulnerability, child opportunity, and socio-economic need — to identify where capacity shortages compound with broader structural constraints.
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Support capacity planning and place-based investments with consistent, data-driven measures of access and unmet need.
Access Desert Analytics provides a geographically precise view of where child care supply falls short of community need, complementing Gap Analytics' ability to reveal patterns of unmet need across populations.
Gap Analytics
Gap Analytics helps agencies understand where children and families face the greatest barriers to accessing child care. By combining service, population, and community data, the Gap Analytics enables agencies to identify unmet needs, understand the factors contributing to access challenges, and prioritize investments where they will make the greatest difference.
With Gap Analytics, agencies can:
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Identify communities where child care availability falls short of family needs
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Assess and compare access to child care across regions to understand where opportunities are strong and where barriers to child care access persist
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Analyze disparities in access across race, income, geography, and other demographic characteristics to identify underserved populations
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Understand how transportation, distance, and other practical barriers affect families' ability to find and use child care
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Evaluate how social and economic conditions influence child care access and family outcomes
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Prioritize funding, program expansion, and policy interventions in areas with the greatest unmet need
Child Care Fact Sheet
Looking for operational tools?
CUSP Foundation provides the integrated data and analytics capabilities agencies need to understand their early childhood systems and act with confidence. If you are looking for tools that help program staff do their daily work across functions like child care subsidies, licensing, risk management, financial auditing, and regulatory compliance, explore CUSP Advanced. Available as an add-on to Foundation or as standalone modules, CUSP Advanced supports proactive and efficient program management.
Ready to get more from your state's data?
Get started with a connected data strategy that unifies child, family, and provider insights, and gives your agency the tools to close gaps, reduce inequity, and serve every child in your state.
Frequently Asked Questions
CUSP Foundation is an early childhood data and analytics platform from 3Si that brings information on children, families, providers, and programs into a single source of truth. Built on CUSP Core, 3Si's integrated data model, it comes with ready-made dashboards, maps, and reports on child care supply, demand, and access, so agencies can see who is served, who isn't, and where to invest.
Yes. CUSP Foundation models a state's entire child population, not just children enrolled in programs. It combines population-level data with program enrollment records, so agencies can measure true demand, find communities with unmet need, and show funders, legislators, and policymakers the full picture.
CUSP Foundation's Access Desert Analytics identifies communities with limited or no realistic access to child care and measures how severe each shortage is, rather than labeling areas simply yes or no. Results are available by age group and at ZIP code, municipal, county, school district, and legislative district levels, and update as providers open, close, or change capacity.
CUSP Foundation's Gap Analytics finds where child care availability falls short of family need, separating capacity gaps, where supply is too low, from utilization gaps, where supply exists but goes unused. It breaks results down by race, income, and geography, accounts for barriers like transportation and distance, and can layer in the Child Opportunity Index and Social Vulnerability Index.
CUSP Foundation gives agencies evidence for funding requests and policy decisions by showing where unmet need is greatest. Agencies use it to support child care grant applications, produce one-page child care fact sheets for policymakers, funders, and community leaders, and track progress over time to demonstrate return on investment.
CUSP Foundation gives agencies a system-wide view of child care supply, demand, and access, while CUSP Advanced adds operational tools that program staff use day to day, such as Program Lifecycle, Risk & Audit, and CUSP Licensing. Most agencies start with Foundation and add Advanced modules when their operational teams need them. Advanced modules are also available on their own.
Yes. CUSP Foundation runs on the 3Si platform, built on Microsoft Azure, where each state's data is isolated in its own environment, encrypted at rest and in transit, and monitored 24/7.