Launch of the "Kitafinder" daycare portal

There are around 130 daycare centers in Erlangen. They are run by the city of Erlangen and over 40 different independent and non-profit providers. Until now, parents looking for a place in a daycare center had to make separate inquiries to each of the daycare centers they were considering, fill out reservation forms and ask questions. The City Youth Welfare Office is now providing the "Kitafinder", a cross-provider online portal for optimizing the search, registration, allocation and administration of childcare places.

Filter function makes the search easier

On Monday (June 17), the starting signal for the 2024/2025 kindergarten year was given in the town hall. Lord Mayor Florian Janik pressed the symbolic start button together with those involved in the project group (City Youth Welfare Office and childcare providers). The website offers the opportunity to search for childcare options using various filter methods, by

• age of the child
• the type of care
• the district
• the radius of the place of residence

and much more. In addition, it offers daycare facilities, independent providers and the city of Erlangen an administration portal with various options for use. These range from an overview of waiting lists to the allocation of places and complete documentation of place registrations.

Click here for the "Kitafinder"

"As a result, the new daycare portal will make it much easier for parents in Erlangen to find a daycare place. The new Little Bird daycare portal provides parents with optimal support in their search for a daycare place and helps to save time." (Lord Mayor Florian Janik)

Comprehensive digitalization also brings many advantages for the administration and daycare facilities: All processes can be processed with just a few clicks via the daycare portal. The data is standardized and always up-to-date. Time-consuming multiple entries and data reconciliation are no longer necessary. The transparent overview also makes demand planning in Erlangen, for example, much easier. And the prescribed statistical reports to the Free State are now also simply a mouse click away.

The path to the "Kitafinder"

The city council decision was made at the end of 2020, and a project group from the city administration has been working since then, from market research to test operation in March 2024. The system from Little Bird Gmbh (Berlin) has now been "armed" for the 2024/2025 school and kindergarten year. The market leader is already being used by around 100 cities and municipalities in Bavaria.


Official launch of the new "Kita Finder" today at midday - it is now much easier for parents to find a place at a daycare center.

Photo: Press office/rh

(A short report can be found in the city newspaper "Rathausplatz 1" - July 2024 issue)