The 2019-2024 Child Care and Early Services Plan asks for greater accessibility and expansion of local childcare services in five communities — Belleville, Quinte West, Tyendinaga, Deseronto and North Hastings.
Bell-Rowbotham adds, “We’re short a lot of child care spaces. The fact that we have only 15% of our children who have access to licensed care is the concern. It’s much lower than the 22% across Ontario. And we are also aware that children are really struggling, based on our EDI results, that almost 40% of children are really struggling with at least one area of development.”
The wait list for infant spaces is from 200 to 300 and for before and after school care officials say it’s “exploding.” The service daily cost is $70 for infants and $46 for preschoolers.
More child care services are being offered through the Military Family Resource Centre in Batawa and North Hastings Child Services.
Quinte West Councillor Karen Sharpe is calling on county council to ask Ontario to to take some steps on the issue: to allow data collection to continue; review a fee subsidy to increase access to care; to provide more funding for child care; and to reduce duplication in the gathering of data.
Child Care Manager Cathy Williams-Utman emphasizes, “There are two big points. The needs of children. We have so much more employment coming to the area. We already have wait lists for child care spots. How do we support families so that they can go to work. What can we do? We need to expand our child care across Hastings County.”
Hastings County Community and Human Services Committee, September 10, 2019 (Photo: Mary Thomas/Quinte News)
The committee is asking the province to come up with more funding.
