GOVERNMENT ALLOCATES 496 NEW CHILD CARE SPACES

Today at the Souls Harbour Rescue Mission in Regina, Deputy Premier and Education Minister Ken Krawetz announced that 17 agencies will be receiving $1.67 million in capital funding to develop 496 new child care spaces in 11 communities throughout the province.

"There is an increasing demand for child care spaces in Saskatchewan as more parents find their place in the workforce or pursue post-secondary education," Krawetz said. "Child care is a priority for the government, which is why we provided funding in this year's budget to develop 1,000 new child care spaces by the end of 2009-10. The 496 spaces allocated today will provide high quality early learning and child care opportunities, as well as support the social and educational development of young children."

Souls Harbour Rescue Mission is being allocated 60 child care spaces, and is receiving more than $200,000 in provincial space development capital funding to ready the former St. Andrew's Church for quality child care programming.

"This building was originally built with an eye to children and youth, where the founding elders said they wanted a place ‘where values can be caught as well as taught'," Souls Harbour Rescue Mission Executive Director Michelle Porter said. "Opening a daycare will bring this building back to its original purpose as well as fill a significant need in this community."

The 496 spaces are part of the Government of Saskatchewan's $4.22 million investment to develop 1,000 new child care spaces this year. The remaining spaces will be awarded to communities across Saskatchewan throughout the year, based on community readiness. This is a new process put in place to ensure communities will be able to open the spaces in the fiscal year they are allocated. Community organizations will be notified by the Ministry of Education as soon as new spaces are approved.

All 1,000 spaces will open by the end of 2009-10, bringing the total of licensed child care spaces in Saskatchewan to 11,400.

In addition to the funding of 1,000 new child care spaces, the early learning and child care sector received an additional $1.2 million to support the training of early childhood educators and $375,000 for child care for children with exceptionally high diverse needs this fiscal year. Child care centres received a seven per cent annualized CBO lift in 2008-09 and an additional three per cent in 2009-10 to support recruitment and retention of early childhood educators.

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For more information, contact:

Sarah Still
Education
Regina
Phone: 306-787-1613
Email: sarah.still@gov.sk.ca