KAMLOOPS — For many working parents it can be a struggle to find affordable daycare in this province.
On Nov. 1, the provincial government rolled out a Universal Child Care pilot project at 53 prototype sites. One was in Kamloops.
“It was like winning the lottery, it really was, for all of us,” said Helen Blair, Director of Education at the Kamloops Child Development Centre.
The Kamloops Child Development Centre has been offering $200-a-month daycare for a few weeks.
“I’ve been in childcare for almost 37 years and I’ve watched parents really work to have their children (in daycare),” Blair said. “We’ve worked very hard to make sure, the early childhood educators, over the 37 years to make quality child care and to make sure people understand how important it is.”
Prior to the launch of the pilot project, parents had to pay around $1,200 per month for an infant or toddler and more than $400 for after school care, costs that are around average in Kamloops.
“It was incredibly stressful,” said Brandy Schmidt, who paid $1,890 when she had two children attending the Kamloops Child Development Centre. “It was more than my mortgage, but we still had the mortgage. I’m a full-time student, so my husband had to bear the weight of the childcare, and he had to work out of town to make enough to pay for the childcare.”
The cost caused enormous financial stress for Schmidt, but the education her children received made it hard to walk away.
Now, all programs at the centre will cost $200-a-month per child.
“It’s such quality childcare,” Schmidt said. “My children have flourished at this centre, but to be able to provide that kind of care for them still and not be putting ourselves in financial ruin for it is incredible. And it’s so huge to so many parents and so many families who don’t know each month how they’re going to give their child care.”
According to Blair, the wait-list for the Kamloops Child Development Centre has grown since the announcement that it would be a prototype centre.
“I already had a really big wait list because there is, you know, a lack of quality care,” Blair said. “We need more centres, we definitely do.”
The Child Development Centre is the only prototype centre in Kamloops, but staff is hoping the pilot project, which will be operational until the end of March 2020, will be extended and expanded to all daycare centres.
