(file photo/paNOW Staff)

By Martin Martinson

Next steps for childcare

Local daycares prepare for phase three of Re-Open Plan Monday

Jun 5, 2020 | 3:29 PM

Phase three of the Re-Open Saskatchewan Plan takes effect Monday, and among the key changes will be the capacity limits on daycares.

Over the last two months, daycare centres have been limited to just eight children per building space or defined area. Starting Monday, that number will be expanded to 15 children per area.

Director at Learning Tree Child Development Centre in North Battleford, Crystal Swyryda, said since the COVID-19 restrictions took effect, it has been a bit of an adjustment for both herself and the staff.

“We really haven’t known what to expect day to day,” she said. “We started out very slow, we went from 60-some kids [before the restrictions] down to 10, and now we’re just slowly picking up.”

She said as the phase three implementation date gets closer and other business continue to reopen their doors, a number of parents have been calling in advance to secure daycare services for their children. She said it’s something the centre has been more than happy to see.

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“We’ve had a lot of calls about childcare, and it’s going to help us now,” she said. “It will let us bring back a few more staff because we’ve had to lay off many [temporarily], and it’ll also be better numbers for the rooms. Just to get our business back up and running to normal, back to the way it was [will be nice] and everybody enjoys the kids here, so we miss our children.”

First Step’s Student Child Care Centre is another of the local daycares who have had to navigate the restrictions in place over the last couple of months.

Regularly operating primarily for teen and college parents, during the pandemic, First Step’s shifted its priority to essential workers’ children.

However, Director Rejeanne Prince van Meer said even with the change, the daycare wasn’t filled to capacity to the extent they had initially anticipated.

“It had a huge effect financially for us this whole summer, because we never got the clientele we thought we would get by staying open for the essential workers,” she said.

Despite that, Prince van Meer did note while they will close for the summer at the end of June, the centre remains open for the time being, for those in need of childcare until then.

She also added staff members are already looking forward to the fall when they do reopen, citing it will be nice to see the kids again and return to some level of normalcy.

For more on the province’s plan, click here.

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Martin.Martinson@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: MartyMartyPxP1