Coordinating, connecting and supporting partnerships with communities is one way that the Province continues to build the best system of support for children and families. Government recognizes that this is something we can’t do on our own. That is why child care partnerships are so important.
Partnerships can effectively bring together a wide range of contributors working together to expand and improve child care and other services for children and families in B.C. Partnerships can be made up of different levels of government, businesses, family, service providers and school districts who offer classroom space to child care providers, as well as employers who provide child care for their employees.
One of our great successes over the past year has been in developing partnerships to create new child care spaces. To this end, partnerships with BC Housing are well on their way to creating more than 200 new spaces in existing or planned social housing developments. These spaces will, in turn, allow low-income families to access job and training opportunities knowing their children are safe and nurtured.
To date, B.C.’s major capital funding program has supported the creation of more than 3,300 new licenses child care spaces since 2001. Partnerships will help us reach our target to create an additional 2000 new child care spaces by 2010.
We also know that it’s important to provide extra support to children and families who need it the most. That is why the government spends nearly $300 million annually on child care services, including assisting 50,000 children from low and moderate income families each year through our subsidy program. We will also continue to focus our efforts on helping to ensure almost 6,000 children with special needs are able to participate in child care settings alongside their peers.
Each of these initiatives serves to further strengthen our province’s child care and early learning system. Certainly there are challenges, including the on going and widespread issue of the availability of child care staffing. Recognizing that government has a role to play in addressing these challenges, we have targeted resources to bursaries and professional development and launched two new pilot programs aimed squarely at recruiting new staff and encouraging experienced early childhood educators to remain in this rewarding field.
I whole-heartedly believe in the positive impact that quality child care, early childhood development and family support programs have on a child’s success in life and on the well being of the family unit. As we move forward, it is important that we continue to create additional, sustainable child care spaces for children, families and communities of this province through collaboration and partnership.