Child Care Growth Strategy

Under the Canada Wide Early Learning and Child Care (CWELCC) Agreement, Ontario intends to support the creation of 86,000 new CWELCC licensed child care spaces by the end of 2026 using Ontario’s Access and Inclusion Framework, 2023 as a guide.  The Ministry of Education has developed a model to allocate funding for new spaces for children aged 0-5 across service system managers, with a focus on improving equity of access by working toward a common provincial access ratio of 37%.

The District of Rainy River Services Board is currently updating its Children’s Services Plan to provide strategic guidance for our work from 2024 – 2028.  A key part of our service system strategy update includes plans for expanding access to licensed child care in accordance with the ministry plans and directives.  As child care continues to become more affordable through the implementation of CWELCC, the demand for care is expected to increase.  The ministry has provided a notional allocation of up to 148 new licensed child care spaces for the Rainy River District to be created by December 2026.  Once finalized, our growth strategy will be made available to child care operators and the community-at-large.  Child care operators interested in expanding their services can express their interest to tanis.fretter@rrdssab.ca.

Provincial Child Care Wage Enhancement Grant 

The Ontario government has made an ongoing funding commitment to support a wage enhancement for eligible child care professionals working in licensed child care settings. The wage enhancement supports access to stable, high-quality child care programs for children in Ontario. The wage enhancement also helps to close the wage gap between registered early childhood educators (RECEs) working in full-day kindergarten (FDK) programs and RECEs/other child care program staff working in licensed child care settings.  

The wage enhancement grant supports the increase of up to $2 per hour plus 17.5% benefits for individuals who work in licensed child care centres. In addition, the home child care enhancement grant will support a grant of up to $20 per day for home child care providers who are contracted to work with a licensed agency.

CWELCC Workforce Compensation

Workforce compensation funding supports are a part of the Canada Wide Early Learning and Child Care Strategy to assist with recruitment and retention of the child care workforce through improved compensation for lower-wage earners. It includes compensation enhancements for registered early childhood educators (RECE) in the form of annual wage and wage floor increases, as well as support to licensees for non-RECE staff (minimum wage offset).

As a committed community partner working to meet the Rainy River District’s need for access to high quality child care, the DRRSB is administering the wage enhancement grant and CWELCC workforce compensation for the Ministry of Education.