Improving access to quality, affordable child care - progress made to date

The Alberta government has a number of initiatives underway to help create 14,000 new child care spaces by 2011; help operators attract and keep qualified staff; and make access to quality child care more affordable for low- and middle-income parents. Highlights from the first year of the three-year plan are as follows:

Making child care programs more affordable for low- and middle-income families.

• Increased pre-school subsidy rates by 3.5 per cent. 10,435 families are now receiving subsidy.

• Introduced a new provincial subsidy for eligible families with school-age children. 3,792 families needing before- and after-school care are now receiving subsidy.

Increasing the number of quality licensed and approved child care programs.

• 9,449 new child care spaces have been created and are open for business in licensed day care centres, pre-schools, out-of-school cares and approved family day homes across the province. 2,558 in day care centres
• 3,229 in out-of-school cares
• 2,007 in pre-schools
• 753 in approved family day homes
• 892 in kin child care*
• 10 in group family child care**

• Expanding the criteria for the Space Creation Innovation Initiative to include the school-age sector; and introducing the Retention Stability Grant and the Staff Attraction Incentive Allowance to help operators recruit and retain staff played a key role in the significant increase in the number of licensed out-of-school care spaces.

• 204 grant applications were received and approved for funding through the Space Creation Innovation Initiative. A copy of the report, broke out by regions in Alberta is available at www.child.alberta.ca/childcare.

• Approved grant applications, submitted by school boards to support the purchase and installation of 44 modulars that will increase the number of spaces adjacent to schools later this year, as well as the funding provided to the M�tis Settlements to renovate existing facilities. A copy of the modular report is available at www.child.alberta.ca/childcare.

• Over the past year, 2,552 spaces have closed. The majority of these spaces were closed on a voluntarily basis due to reasons such as the operator moved, retired, or sold the business, similar to what other business sectors experience.
• 619 in day care centres
• 834 in out-of-school cares
• 890 in pre-schools
• 209 in approved family day homes
• As a result, Alberta experienced a net gain of 6,897 spaces.

• Alberta now has a total of 77,234 licensed and approved spaces.
• 26,322 in day care centres
• 22,365 in out-of-school cares
• 17,790 in pre-schools
• 10,757 in approved family day homes

Improving quality in Alberta’s licensed and approved child care programs.

• Invested over $48 million in accreditation grant payments to child care programs to support quality child care programming in licensed day care centres and approved family day home agencies.
• 449 out of 586 licensed day care centres and approved family day homes are now accredited. Alberta is the only province that has a child care accreditation program. Accreditation gives parents with children needing care before and after school an additional tool to help them identify programs with standards of excellence over and above Alberta’s regulated requirements.
• Designed and piloted a new out-of-school care accreditation program in 12 licensed programs in Alberta. The Out-of-School Care Accreditation program was made available to all licensed school-age programs on April 1, 2009.

Attracting and retaining qualified child care professionals.

• Implemented year one of a three-year recruitment marketing strategy to attract workers to the child care profession.
• 1,172 new or experienced staff now working in licensed and approved child care programs, which were eligible to receive the Staff Attraction Incentive Allowance.
• 1,517 staff with equivalent human service credentials have been certified to work in child care. Majority of these staff are new, and others were already working in child care and are now certified at a higher level.
• 2,902 individuals are currently participating in the online child care orientation course.

* Kin Child Care Subsidy helps eligible low- and middle-income families pay a relative to care for their child, outside of the family’s home.
** A new licensing category that was introduced when the Child Care Licensing Act came into effect in fall 2008. This category allows for two caregivers to care for seven to 10 children in a home setting.