It appears Queens new daycare building will be in place before enough staff are found.

The planning and design phase of the new annex is complete and permits are in place to break ground this fall.

The addition of the 3,800 square foot annex will nearly double the daycare’s existing 4,000 square feet allowing the facility to increase the number of children it can support from 42 to 91.

Chair of the Queens Daycare Association Scott Christian says the $2 million investment from the provincial government will mean a new facility tailored to the needs of a daycare.

However, finding qualified Early Childhood Educators will be more challenging.

Christian says with waitlists in the three streams of infant, pre-primary and afterschool care it will take time to find staff to allow them to reach their capacity.

“There’s going to be a lot of excitement around this,” said Christian. “We have this big, new shiny building. The reality is we’re not going to be able to flip a switch and welcome 90 children into our program.”

Christian says the issue is that many initiatives are only now coming online and it could be several years before today’s students are ready for the workforce.

“The requirement is that two-thirds of your staff need to be certified ECEs and the reality is that the labour force does not exist right now,” said Christian. “The province is doing wonderful things in terms of working with the colleges, working with Mount St. Vincent University to really ramp up those programs and the capacity of those programs to be churning out ECEs.”

The entire daycare project, managed by Well Engineered Inc. out of Dartmouth will be completed in two phases, construction of the annex then renovation of the existing school building.

Christian says they expect to welcome children into a fully expanded and renovated Queens Daycare by December 2023.

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