NANAIMO – Thousands of families in 34 BC communities will soon have access to quality, licensed child care, as the Province marks a new milestone in its Childcare BC plan.
“Despite the challenges that the COVID-19 pandemic has brought, our goal to create new child care spaces throughout the province continues to gain momentum,” said Katrina Chen, Minister of State for Child Care. “We’ve been able to fund nearly 16,800 new spaces in the past two years, helping to fulfil our promise of better, more affordable child care options for children and families throughout BC.”
Since March 2020, when the Province announced a child care milestone of more than 13,000 new licensed spaces, an additional 3,160 new licensed child care spaces have been funded throughout the province under the Childcare BC New Spaces Fund. July marks the second anniversary of the launch of the fund, under which an average of 700 new spaces have been approved for funding each month.
School District 68 (Nanaimo-Ladysmith) received the majority of the region’s 536 newly approved spaces to proceed with 10 projects that will create licensed child care spaces on school grounds.
Recent changes made by the government to the School Act will make it even easier for school boards to create and operate before- and after-school care. The changes will also require school boards to prioritize space that is not being used for K-12 students for child care and encourage school boards to adopt an inclusive child care policy.
In addition to the projects on school grounds, Nanaimo will receive Childcare BC New Spaces funding to support two non-profit projects – one through the Discover Montessori Society and one through the Nanaimo Innovation Academy Foundation.
“We are grateful for the investment by the New Spaces Fund toward the development of our Montessori Farm School Campus in Nanaimo. Our farm-based children’s campus will enable more families to have access to desperately needed infant-toddler, preschool and elementary child care spaces in the area. Designed with environmental sustainability and zero carbon in mind, the campus will be clean, bright and welcoming for children, and will offer many hands-on opportunities to connect students with nature,” said Cynthia Dyer, principal and executive director, Discover Montessori Society.
An additional 4,110 spaces, funded through the 2017 Budget Update and the Early Learning and Child Care agreement with the Government of Canada, takes the total to nearly 20,900 spaces since July 2017.