Non-profit and home-based child care in N.S. offered provincial funding to create more spaces

The province announced two new programs on Tuesday that aim to help create more child care spaces in Nova Scotia.

One program provides existing or new licensed non-profit operators with up to $250,000 for minor renovations that will increase child-care spaces, and up to an additional $25,000 for administrative expenses.

Meanwhile, the family home start-up program provides up to $7,500 to assist people in Nova Scotia with opening regulated family home child-care sites. This money aims to help with start-up costs like home improvements or the materials and supplies needed to meet regulations.

Becky Druhan, the minister of Education and Early Childhood Development, said up to $9 million is available from the first program, which could yield up to 800 new spaces. Up to $2 million is available for the family home-start up program, which she said could provide funding for up to 250 new family homes and provide up to 1,500 new spaces.

Druhan said that family home child-care sites are especially important for rural areas of the province that can't support larger centres. The province's most recent figures, from the end of September, indicates there are 207 active sites. 

"Child-care spaces are in high demand across the province, and we need to be innovative in how we make child care more accessible," she said in a news release Tuesday. "We have major infrastructure projects underway, but those take time."

Druhan said the funding for both programs can be used for renovations such as flooring, updates to bathrooms, and ensuring spaces are more tailored to meet the needs of children. Applications for both programs will open in January.

The director of the non-profit Bayview Child Development Centre in Port Hood, N.S., said the renovation program makes it more likely her centre will be able to expand operations in the future.

"This amount [of money] will be very, very beneficial to people like us … non-profit organizations who are looking to open new spaces," said Jigisha Patel in an interview, adding that the program will be helpful during a period of inflation.

In the release, Lea Anne Joudrie, family home coordinator with Jane Norman College in Truro, N.S., said "this [family home] initiative will … be a great incentive in recruiting new providers."

The two programs are part of a 2021 agreement between the province and the federal government which allocates hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding over five years to make child care cheaper and more accessible.

Patel said she's hopeful she'll be able to hire more people because many early childhood educators (ECEs) have graduated recently. However, she noted that staffing does remain a challenge in part because wages are not high enough for ECEs. 

Last year, some daycare operators also said there was a "crisis" in the sector because of labour shortages and rising costs.

In 2022, the province increased the wages of ECEs by about 30 per cent in a move Druhan called "long overdue." And following a three per cent increase in April, ECEs now earn between $19.67 and $25.12 an hour.

On Thursday, Druhan said she's well aware that her government's work to improve the sector is unfinished.

"We need to continue to work to improve the landscape to ensure that we do have the workforce now and into the future," she said.