The Palmerston day care centre has become “a good News story for child care,” thanks to the County of Wellington’s intervention last year, says the centre’s director.
The county took over operation of the former non-profit Early Learning Centre (ELC) in 2013, after the facility’s programs failed to meet a significant portion of the province’s child care programming operating criteria.
Now known as the Palmerston Child Care and Learning Centre, the facility provides five “high quality, full-time, full-year child care spaces” for toddlers and eight spaces for pre-schoolers, said Luisa Artuso, director of child care services for Wellington County.
Artuso, in a report to Minto council on Sept. 16, noted Minto was already flagged as an area of concern in terms of child care availability, prior to the troubles at the ELC.
“Sustainable child care in Minto has been an ongoing priority in our child care services plan,” she said, noting Minto has higher rates of child and family poverty, a higher percentage of lower income households and “reports of limited access to child care,” compared to other areas of the county.In addition, she explained there are higher portions of children in Minto who are considered “developmentally at risk” for school failure.
“Early childhood research strongly supports that this level of risk by children in Minto is related to a shortage of consistent and high quality early childhood programming in the area,” stated Artuso.
“Evidence shows when you have licensed high quality child care in a community, that the outcomes for those children are greater.”
The county’s involvement has stabilized the day care situation in Palmerston, particularly in the area of staff turnover, which had become a problem.
“Every person working at this centre earns an early childhood professional wage level,” Artuso explained.
She noted some employees of the former Early Learning Centre would have qualified for the very subsidized spaces the centre was providing based on their average incomes of about $28,000 per year.
“We are able to attract the highest qualified extremely well-skilled staff because of our wages, working conditions and our reputation for quality among early childhood educators,” she stated.
Councillor Mary Lou Colwell said the county’s decision to take over the centre was crucial to keeping it operating.
“We can’t thank the county enough for being able to maintain this quality of day care in our community – they really stepped up,” said Colwell.
Mayor George Bridge thanked Artuso for her dedication to the local provision of quality child care.
“If Louisa had the budget she’d have a lot more child care. She’d have it everywhere,” said Bridge. He added he is a believer in the economic development advantages that flow from providing quality child care.
