Daycares asked to reopen for kids of emergency workers

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This article was published 02/04/2020 (2255 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Manitoba government is asking daycares to “do the right thing” and reopen to care for children of emergency workers during the novel coronavirus pandemic.

Three weeks after the province ordered licensed child-care centres to close, in an effort to control the spread of the virus, Families Minister Heather Stefanson said the government is reaching out to all facilities, asking them to look after a maximum of 16 children each, based on public-health regulations (limited to eight children in home-based daycares).

The province is expecting increased demand for child care and is trying to triage to meet the need, Stefanson told reporters during a news conference Thursday afternoon.

People who work in emergency services — including front-line health-care workers, firefighters, law enforcement, correctional workers and child-protection workers — are being asked to apply for child-care spots by April 8. As of April 14, additional spots are expected to be opened up to other essential workers, including grocery store employees, farmers and construction staff.

The government will keep funding child-care centres over the next three months, with operating grants worth nearly $30 million.

“In return, we are asking closed child-care centres to open… to help assist our critical service workers and provide them the child-care services they need,” Stefanson said, adding daycares that remain closed should refund any prepaid fees to parents.

“And they should not charge parents to hold spots during these uncertain times.”

When licensed Manitoba daycares closed March 17, Ben Capili and his wife, who both work in the health-care field, were scrambling to find a new placement for their toddler daughter amid uncertainty about who would qualify for emergency child care. They managed to find a daycare that had reopened before being officially asked to do so.

“It was me being persistent and advocating for myself that I got a spot,” he said Thursday.

“With so many changes and so many things being implemented, there will be growing pains… I hope that when we get out of all this, we don’t go back to the individualistic way that we lived, I hope that we keep some of the values about caring for each other.”

The Opposition criticized the government’s announcement Thursday as creating “an impossible situation” for child-care centres and for parents. Thompson MLA Danielle Adams, NDP critic for child care, called on the province to cover the cost of parents’ child care fees.

As of Thursday, 396 of 1,172 licensed child care facilities had reopened; a total of 1,582 spaces, according to the Families Department. Manitoba has more than 35,000 spaces when operating at full capacity.

katie.may@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @thatkatiemay