Child Care
Quality child care benefits parents, caregivers, children and families in many ways. Parents and caregivers are enabled to perform their daily routines while their children are cared for in a safe, healthy environment.
Quality child care is an important consideration for children’s emotional, mental, and physical growth and development; such services provide positive experiences, promoting the independence and confidence children need for future years.
Getting Started
Your choice of a child care arrangement will depend upon a number of factors including; your child’s age, your schedule, family values, location, and the cost.
- Develop a list of the things you feel are important, such as the qualifications of the provider, their approach to guiding children’s behaviour and what a typical day looks like.
- If you have a child who needs extra support, you may also want to identify your child’s unique needs, strengths and interests.
- Contact Child Care Resource and Referral. It is your BEST source of information on child care services and can provide you with referrals to local care providers and information and applications for government subsidies for child care.
- Call a number of child care settings. It’s a good idea to visit a few settings and do some comparisons. It’s also wise to visit at different times of the day to view different aspects of the program.
- Take your child to visit your final choice. Remember to check references and to talk to other families who have children in the child care setting.
