Access to Child Care in PA – What You Need to Know
With fall now upon us many families are seeking child care in order to return to school or work. The Prince Albert Early Childhood Council has just completed a survey of Prince Albert's supply of licensed child care spaces and the results may surprise you. There are 21 licensed Child Care Centres in the city and 5 licensed Child Care homes. In total there are just 889 licensed spaces.
Three of the Centres serve 3 community High Schools with 33 infant and 10 toddler spaces and are not necessarily considered community spaces. The breakdown of the remaining spaces accessible to the community is as follows: Infant spaces 54, Toddler spaces 180, Pre-School spaces 508, School Age spaces 101. Each Centre has a mixture of age categories however only 7 Centres and 3 licensed Homes accept infants.
The creation and operation of Child Care Centres under provincial regulations falls to Non-Profit Organizations or Volunteer Parent Cooperatives. Groups are charged with assessing need, creating a plan, applying for funded spaces, fundraising for capital projects and the hiring of qualified staff and daily operations of Centres. Many very dedicated people in Prince Albert have worked hard over the years to fill the needs of the community. However, as you can see by the numbers, we are falling behind the current need with many hundreds of names on waiting lists. The short supply of Infant aged spaces in particular, newborn to 18 months, is in response to the high costs of operating these spaces. Working families who qualify for Employment Insurance Maternity Benefits find themselves in a bind with Maternity Leave lasting one year but most Centres only accepting children at 18 months.
While the Provincial Government supports Child Care operations with funding, it is only partial funding with the balance of the costs at the parents expense. Centres are highly regulated under the Child Care Regulations, in order to support quality care, but are expected to operate with less than adequate funding. A Child Care Subsidy is available to low income families to assist with parent fees however, the system is cumbersome for Centres and parents must earn well below the Low Income Cut Off to qualify for full subsidy. Families returning to school, single parent families and low income families all struggle with the costs of child care while they are attempting to improve the lives of their families and children.