In a bold move that reflects the changing landscape of work and family life, Meijer recently announced a new dependent care benefit that allows team members to be reimbursed for care provided by someone in their personal network.
From the official Meijer press release:
“Team members can submit reimbursement requests for care provided by someone in their personal network – a friend, neighbor or babysitter – to care for a child, dependent, or elderly family member.”
This is more than just a perk—it’s a paradigm shift. It reflects what many families already know to be true: trusted care most often comes from people they already know and rely on.
And that’s exactly what SitterSync was built for.
Most corporate benefits are built around structured, center-based care or matching services that pair families with caregivers they’ve never met. But that model doesn’t fit everyone.
For many working parents, care comes from a high school student from church, a neighbor who picks up after school, a college student trusted by the whole block, or maybe even a grandparent with spare time that wants to make a couple extra bucks.
This is community-based care.
This is real-world childcare.
And now, thanks to Meijer, it’s finally being recognized and reimbursed.
At SitterSync, we saw this shift coming—and we built a platform that specifically supports it.
Families use SitterSync to manage care from their own network:
People they know.
People they trust.
People they already rely on.
We provide the tools to:
Track hours and payments for informal care
Generate Dependent Care FSA-ready receipts
Categorize jobs and export year-end reports for the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit (CDCTC)
Organize care history by date or provider
Prepare documentation for reimbursement from employer programs like Meijer’s
In short: we make informal care trackable, reimbursable, and tax-smart.
Meijer’s leadership sends a powerful message to other employers:
Supporting families means supporting the care they already use.
By reimbursing care through personal networks—and pairing it with tools like SitterSync—HR teams can:
✅ Improve benefit utilization
✅ Boost employee satisfaction and retention
✅ Support caregivers of children, elders, and dependents across diverse household types
This isn’t just the future of childcare benefits. It’s the present—and it’s scalable. Click the button below to book a demo with our team on how we can support your current benefits program, or custom build a reimbursement program for you focused on personal networks of care providers.