(File photo/paNOW Staff)

By Ian Gustafson

Early Child development

More child care locations announced in P.A.

Mar 16, 2022 | 4:00 PM

Residents looking for child care spaces in Prince Albert will soon have two additional locations for their children to go.

The Prince Albert Child Care Co-operative Association and the House of the Potter will provide the city with more spaces for children for a combined 86 new spaces.

This is a part of the provincial and federal governments announcing 1,202 new child care spaces coming to Saskatchewan as a way to provide families more affordable and high-quality childcare in the province. A shared goal is to create 28,000 new spaces by the end of March 2026.

In August 2021 the Canada-Saskatchewan Canada-Wide Early Learning and Child Care Agreement was signed to provide a federal investment of nearly $1.1 billion over five years for child care in Saskatchewan.

Jodene Demorest, executive director of the P.A. Child Care Co-operative Association told paNOW the site of the additional location has not been determined but the search is on. Their timeline at this point is two years and they are open to all possibilities, whether they build a new building or open the location in an existing structure. She said they’re hoping to partner with Sask. Rivers School Division.

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“This will be our third location. Earlier this year we took over 33 spaces that another centre was giving up. So, we have 33 spaces inside King George School already and so the additional 40 spaces will bring us up to 116 available spaces for children,” Demorest said.

The P.A. Child Care Co-op provides early learning programming, not just child care, which she said is very important to them. They offer play-based experiences to expand children’s abilities.

Demorest said at this point more spaces are needed in the province as the P.A. Child Care Co-operative Association has a huge waiting list.

“It was within two months we had well over 20 children up at King George, so that didn’t take long. Now that child care is affordable for families with the parent fee reduction grant, it’s just very exciting to see that more children are getting that opportunity for an earlier learning experience versus just waiting for the pre-K or Kindergarten,” Demorest explained.

paNOW reached out to House of Potter for information on their new development but did not receive a response before publishing.

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Ian.Gustafson@pattisonmedia.com

On Twitter: @IanGustafson12