The City of New Westminster will be surveying child-care providers to determine what impacts they’ve encountered during the pandemic.
A child care task force is one of five COVID-19 pandemic response task forces currently operating in the city. In a recent update to council, the task force reported that surveys will be sent out to child-care operators in September to inquire about topics such as challenges and concerns they’re currently facing, supports they would find beneficial (including resources such as sanitizer, masks etc.), challenges faced by parents of children in their care and potential future short- and long-term challenges.
“I would like to understand to what extent we may have lost child-care spaces effectively in the city under the COVID conditions,” said Coun. Jaimie McEvoy. “I am thinking that child-care operations are introducing some of their own measures and some social distancing, and we read in the report that some child care workers are not coming back to work. I am thinking we actually need to identify the impact of that for our child-care strategy.”
Coun. Mary Trentadue welcomes information about the status of child-care centres in New Westminster.
“I think it would be really important for us to know what kind of loss of spaces we may have seen, if any,” she said. “I notice in the report that a survey is going out in September to child-care providers, so if we could get back some indication of what spaces have been lost, and if so, that would be useful. Childcare is always verging on crisis mode so it would be very helpful to know if things have changed there.”
According to the report to council, child-care operators continue to have challenges in staffing as some employees aren’t returning to their positions because of health concerns, while others have decided to leave this profession.
“There is concern from the child-care operators regarding the temporary emergency funding that will be ending in August and the uncertainty of what families will be doing with their children when school opens up in the fall,” said the update to council. “If they choose to hold onto their spot and not use it, they will be required to pay the monthly child-care fee.”
Renee Chadwick, a facility manager in the city, said there are “some challenges” in regards to staffing at child-care facilities in New West.
“Right at this present moment, there are lots of available spaces for childcare. There was one child-care facility that closed in the Sapperton area. However, the city was able to work with school district and there was some expansion in the McBride space,” she said. “A lot of unknowns are going to kind of surface when school gets back, and we will be able to have a better idea of the child-care situation through the district.”
