Bruce County Council got a quarterly review for community needs and statistics for childcare.
Tina Metcalfe, the Director of Human Services, which oversees Children’s Services, says that they’re happy to see more children being placed into childcare within the community, but they’re still not able to completely meet demands.
“We are seeing an increasing demand for childcare locally,” Metcalfe shared with council at Thursday’s meeting. “People are wanting to get on the waitlist. Childcare is more affordable, given the new Canada-wide Early Learning and Childcare Program, and people are wanting to return to the workforce as well.”
Bruce County staff is co-leading a Bruce Grey Registered Early Childhood Educator (ECE) Recruitment and Retention Working Group that includes membership and support from local colleges, boards of education, workplace engagement services and corporate communications, to develop and implement local ECE recruitment and retention strategies.
“We need to keep up with efforts to recruit and retain early childhood educators as we know, early childhood educators are foundational to the expansion of childcare.”
Metcalfe says that there has been some good collaboration with Fanshawe College to support ECE students. “There has been a nice uptake on that. We have 30 students in that program, and with the recent announcements from the federal government about the new childcare funding formula, we’re eager to see that new funding formula, and we hope that there will be increased funding to support the wages for early childhood educators.”
The county received funding to support increased access and inclusion for childcare, and really Metcalfe says they’re pleased at the uptake on that funding by both new and existing licensed childcare providers.
There has been an increased capacity of over 300 spaces, but are still hoping to find new ways to expand availability to keep up with growing demand.
