Noting that the need for after-school child care will vary considerably by community, this tool kit has been developed to encourage local collaborations of community members to examine the needs and programs for school-age care, with this term including child care before school and during the summer, in their community. The guide provides a step-by-step plan to measure the need for after-school care and the existing programs in a community. The guide is organized in five areas: (1) creating local collaborations, describing why collaborations are important, suggesting potential partners, and suggesting ways to create and maintain successful collaborations; (2) measuring need, describing how to identify key questions, design a parent survey, create a distribution plan, and develop ways to obtain a good survey response rate; (3) measuring community programs, providing suggestions for identifying possible information sources and for gathering information; (4) understanding and summarizing results, providing suggestions for structuring a report that identifies community after-school care needs; and (5) developing action strategies, discussing "fill-the-gap" and outreach strategies. Throughout the guide are boxes highlighting samples of items from the appended instruments and suggestions for making the needs assessment easier. The guide's appendices include sample materials, a list of parks and recreation programs for children, and a list of Boys and Girls Clubs in Arizona. (KB)