City hopes to conduct child care inventory

PRINCE GEORGE – The City hopes to collect information around accessing child care seats in Prince George and the availability of those seats.

“UBCM made a pot of funding available to local governments to identify child care needs, current inventories and also to target needs over the next ten years with the intent that the information would form an action plan,” explains Chris Bone, the Manager of Community Sustainability.

Kool Kats Kids Care has just over 40 kids registered at its centre and a wait list with 35 names on it. Jean Petrovic says adding child care seats to the community would be a huge help. Other challenges facing daycare in Prince George is the lack of Early Childhood Educators and, in particular, the fact that many people are shift workers.

“We’re a bit more flexible,” says Petrovic. “We will work around these shift workers, but it is hard for them, really hard. Plus they start early and get off late.”