Text of the press release:
Steps to further improve quality child-care programs will be supported with provincial funding of $370,000, Family Services and Housing Minister Christine Melnick announced today.
The Manitoba Child Care Association will receive $250,000 to conduct a comprehensive feasibility study for a provincewide accreditation model.
"We are pleased to work with the Manitoba Child Care Association on goals that focus on improving the quality of child-care programs and environments," said Melnick. "Together with parents, community groups and the association, we continue to make progress to further improve the quality of child care, one of the principles that forms the backbone of our long-term vision for child care in Manitoba."
In addition, at least $120,000 will provide new, multimedia resource materials for all licensed child-care centres, family child-care homes and nursery schools in Manitoba. Called The Science of Early Childhood Development, the made-in-Manitoba online multimedia materials will be made available to licensed programs in the new year. The materials were produced by Red River College and are also being used by early childhood education students at other colleges.
Through a combination of videos, case histories, audio clips, pop-up readings and interactive opportunities, the resource materials will help all early childhood educators and providers in licensed child-care programs across Manitoba gain a sound foundation of current evidence-based knowledge. As a result, early childhood educators will be better equipped to provide meaningful opportunities for early child development when working with children and their families.
"This new curriculum resource will provide improved access to important information and practical applications for early childhood educators to use in their work with children," Labour and Immigration Minister Nancy Allan, minister responsible for the status of women, said at the announcement today.
In addition to these new supports, new best practices licensing manuals are being developed for centres and homes and will be distributed to all licensed facilities. Building on existing child-care regulations and guidelines, these new best practices provide proven methods to further improve programming and ensure high-quality early learning and child care.
These latest initiatives are in addition to other government support for existing early-learning and child-care programs to create ideas to maximize local community resources and capacity and to work together more collaboratively. Total funding of $60,000 will begin to flow in the new year so communities can develop or implement governance models for child care in their local areas such as the HUB model. This funding will further the stabilization of the child-care system in Manitoba, said Allan.
On April 29, Manitoba and Canada signed an agreement called Moving Forward on Early Learning and Child Care, the first of its kind in Canada. In total, during the next five years, Manitoba's share of the federal government's support is estimated to be $176 million. Manitoba is committed to spending all new federal funds on child care.
To date, Manitoba has also committed to:
- $14.4 million for increased wages, education and training incentives for child-care workers;
- at least $5.75 million for up to 3,168 licensed spaces and support of $140,000 for up to 200 nursery-school spaces;
- $2.7 million to support expansion or building of new child-care centres; and
- the use of surplus school space as a first-choice location for child-care centres under an Early Learning and Child Care in Schools Policy.