Queens Daycare Association has set spring of 2024 to open their expanded childcare centre.

The facility currently provides care for 42 children and 8 infants. Once renovations are complete another 65 childcare spaces will be opened.

President of the Queens Daycare Association Scott Christian says some reconfiguration of classes will be necessary during construction.

“The new side is expected to be complete this winter. We’re aiming for December or January to have the new building portion complete and then we’ll just migrate all the kiddos over there onto the new side so that there's no sort of disruption to the operation,” said Christian. “Migrate everybody over there and then we'll be getting the upstairs of the old Mount Pleasant school which the program is currently taking place in and that will be completely renovated.”

The renovations will involve the creation of 13 new toilets and sinks to meet provincial guidelines that dictate the ratio of children to washroom facilities.

Christian says finding qualified Early Childhood Educators (ECEs) has been challenging in the past and he appreciates the work being done by the provincial government to open new spaces to train more childcare professionals.

“It's really challenging to get the infrastructure and the labour force pieces to kind of move in tandem with one another and so sort of, delays to the construction project have meant that now we're further along in terms of the province investing and creating more and developing more ECEs,” said Christian. “So, we're hopeful that when we do get to a point where we're able to open up both sides of the new and newly renovated daycare that we will be able to hire and have the type of team that we will be able to pretty quickly ratchet up our program to accept new families into the program because we still are maintaining a waitlist that fluctuates between 40 and 50 kids.”

Christian says the childcare landscape has changed drastically over the past few years as different levels of government try to find a path forward that works for children, parents, and care providers.

“The move to sort of, $10 a day average childcare across the province and across the country has been challenging,” said Christian. “It's just structurally, is very complex but I have to applaud the government has been, well, it's been challenging. And while there's lots of difficult decisions and what they've been very supportive, I would say they've been very supportive to the community-based organisations who are trying to navigate it.”

Christian sees more young families in Queens and says the renovations will be key to the Queens Daycare meeting the demands of the community.

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