EXCERPTS
Room for growth in the City of Swift Current is needed, as is outlined by the Government of Saskatchewan providing it.
An announcement made by the provincial government outlined that 149 new child care centre spaces are being allocated in the province, 30 of which, Swift Current will receive.
Other cities in the province who are also getting some of the nearly 150 spaces are Regina, Prince Albert, and Saskatoon.
The spaces will allow the recipient to care for 30 more children.
Swift Current's recipient of the spaces is Natural Wonders Early Learning Centre Inc.
Saskatchewan's Early Years Branch of the Education Ministry decided on the distribution of the spaces throughout the province.
Director of Early Learning and Childcare Service Delivery with the Early Years branch Cindy Jeanes said the process that went into choosing the locations.
"So when we have childcare spaces to allocate, we have a process that communities can make applications, we allocate the spaces to the communities that have a demonstrated need for childcare, and they can actually move forward with developing the spaces, and with these, there were a few other things that we were considering under the Canada-Saskatchewan Early Learning and Childcare Agreement."
As a part of a bigger plan that the province is carrying out, Jeanes spoke about how the aforementioned agreement had on the process of creating the spaces.
"We had a call out for people to apply, it was announced when we signed the Canada-Saskatchewan Early Learning and Childcare Agreement that part of that agreement was a commitment to developing 1,015 childcare spaces."
Due to the spaces being allocated being ones in which an early learning experience is provided to children, Jeanes said that a subsidy can be provided to parents who apply.
"If they're eligible, they can apply for a childcare subsidy to assist with the cost of the care with their parent fee, and that's a program that's administered through the Ministry of Social Services, so they have some eligibility criteria, and it also means that those spaces will receive some monthly operating funds from the Ministry of Education."
Monthly operating funds that Natural Wonders Early Learning Centre Inc. may receive are intended to cover their overhead costs.