New Brunswick will cover the costs of emergency child care for essential service workers who have to reserve a spot at their usual facility.
Deputy education minister George Daley says when essential workers are looking for placement, priority goes to the daycare centres parents are already using.
“We have sent them to their home daycare so there is no ‘double-dipping’ in those cases. We feel fairly confident that what is coming in there is about meeting the needs of having to open in this emergency,” Daley said.
Education officials have told daycare centres which have laid-off their employees not to charge parents.
But if a centre remains operational, parents will have to keep paying to ensure their child’s place is reserved.
Essential workers will not be required to pay double child care fees due to the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak.https://t.co/Zkz8ctWh5x
— Government of NB (@Gov_NB) March 20, 2020
Daley said C.U.P.E has made all the school custodians in the province available to help.
“We have told the emergency daycares as they open will work to have custodians from the school system go to their centres to help clean as they need it and to maintain the standard,” Daley said.
More than 1100 parents have reached out to the province for emergency daycare. Of then over 1700 children involved, more than 500 of them have places assigned.
Daley said some communities are struggling to meet the need but, often a facility in a neighboring town has room.
The possibility of using schools as temporary daycares has not been ruled out.
