IRis now has information on child day care centers and child care resource & referral agencies throughout Massachusetts. The program entries for the child day care centers lists information on prices and services offered. We recommend that parents should also be referred to a child care resource & referral agency when they are looking for day care. These programs offer customized childcare searches and information & referral around parenting issues. The keywords for child day care programs are Certified Day Care, Child Day Care, Day Care Centers, Daycare/Children, and After School Programs. The keywords for child care resource & referral agencies are Childcare I&R, Day Care/I&R, and Parenting.

We are currently in the process of completing an update of the approximately 4,000 programs that Boston Senior Homecare enters. Other projects in the works are entering adoption agencies and Early Intervention programs.

In order to help those who want to get into the habit of using IRis and offer more efficient strategies for searching for the IRis-savvy, we are offering training this May. Two different courses will be presented (eight sessions total), the IRis Refresher and the Advanced IRis course (see chart for schedule). The IRis Refresher is for people who need to revive their skills and learn about new programs contained in IRis. It is also appropriate for people who are computer savvy who have never had IRis training. The Advanced IRis course is for people who use IRis on a regular basis. This course will discuss strategies for maximizing community program searches. If you have never been trained in IRis or you feel you need individual attention in learning computer programs, we suggest you arrange for a one-on-one tutorial. Call x6-8182 or e-mail Laura Ponce Mendoza to reserve a space in class or arrange for a tutorial.