More than 100 child care centres in Hamilton will be operating by the end of July
Published July 13, 2020 at 5:53 pm
As more of the province comes online, child care is top of mind for many in Hamilton.
As more of the province comes online, child care is top of mind for many in Hamilton.
As it stands, there are 85 licensed child care centres in Hamilton up and running but for the time being, they are operating at approximately 50 per cent of their capacity.
This is according to Grace Mater, the director of Hamilton’s Children’s Services and Neighbourhood Development Division.
Mater was speaking to a report in front of the Emergency and Community Services Committee at their meeting on Monday (July 13).
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“By the end of the month, there should be 103 in operation,” Mater told committee members.
On Monday, Education Minister Stephen Lecce said the province was planning to expand the number of children allowed in daycare centres effective July 27, though few details were immediately available. This suggests that capacity at Hamilton daycares will also ramp up in the coming weeks.
However, Mater notes that families, for a variety of reasons, aren’t sending their children to care just yet.
“Families are still a bit reticent,” she noted, adding that for many families, they’re holding off for summer holidays or until September to return their child to care. She said there’s some nervousness too.
When it comes to September, however, there are still a lot of questions as to how child care will operate.
If schools do not reopen to maximum capacity, which is unlikely, child care centres will likely be relied upon to help fill the gap, Mater said. Therefore, more changes in the centres will likely be in the works.
More on that issue won’t be clear until the province has decided on what the 2020-2021 school year will look like.
As child care centres reopen, the cost for operating them in the COVID-19 era is going to go up, the report notes.
“Given the smaller group sizes, PPE requirements, and additional staffing needed for screening and enhanced cleaning, the cost to operate child care will be significantly higher during this time,” the report says.
For now, centres are required to keep fees at pre-COVID-19 levels. Home daycares are exempt from this requirement.
The City of Hamilton has also extended the affordability grant, which provides a reduction of $10 a day in fees, until August 31.
Mater said that they are looking to have that grant remain in place at least until the end of the year “if possible,” but the report says that with the increased cost of running the centres, that may have to be eliminated.
Ward 8 councillor Brad Clark noted that he has heard from a number of constituents who claim their child care fees have gone up since they returned their children to care.
“In some cases, up to $700 to $1000 a month,” he said, asking Mater how families should address this.
She told Clark that if that is the case, those centres would be in violation of provincial protocols and she and the city’s Children’s Services should be contacted immediately to investigate.
— with a file from the Canadian Press
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