Plans to reopen selected licensed child care centres to provide spaces for the children of core service workers does not yet include towns, provincial officials have confirmed.
“Right now, there are not daycares reopening in smaller cities and towns,” Children’s Services department spokesperson Lauren Armstrong said in a statement provided to The Albertan.
“However this could change over the next two or three weeks. We are working with Alberta Health and Municipal Affairs to continually assess priority staff and their needs across the province.”
The province announced that Children’s Services is working with child care providers to open up to 15,000 child care spaces for access to health-care practitioners and critical infrastructure workers.
The child care centres are initially being chosen based on proximity to health-care facilities and will be reopened in a phased approach based on areas of need starting March 23.
All other licensed child care centres are to remain closed.
The province announced on April 1 that in addition to the previously eligible front-line health-care workers, critical infrastructure workers and first responders, child care is now available to anyone who works in the critical areas outlined as essential by government.
Currently, child care centres have reopened in Calgary, Edmonton, Devon, Fort McMurray, Fort Saskatchewan, Grande Prairie, Lethbridge, Medicine Hat, Red Deer and Stony Plain. Overall, these centres are at eight per cent of their allotted capacity, so there is room to expand eligibility, the provncial government has confirmed.
The Alberta government is reopening spaces in four other communities and working with Municipal Affairs, the Alberta Urban Municipalities Association and Rural Municipalities of Alberta to identify areas of need elsewhere.
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