Project coordinator proposed to help Sarnia-area add child care spaces

Lambton County officials say local non-profit daycare operators will need help adding new spaces called for under an affordable child care deal the federal and provincial governments signed last year.

The county department responsible for children’s services says in a report Lambton’s target under the agreement will see an additional 210 daycare spaces in schools and 311 new community-based spaces built in the next three years.

The county currently has about 3,300 licensed child care spaces.

“I think it’s an ambitious goal,” said Melissa Fitzpatrick, the county’s manager of homelessness prevention and children’s services.

“We’re going to do our best as the municipality to meet the goal. We recognize there’s not enough licensed child care spaces and we want to do our part. . . but certainly it will be a lot of work over the next three years.”

The department, which manages child care in Lambton, is seeking permission from county council to hire a project coordinator for 18 months to oversee the expansion of community-based spaces.

The cost of building the spaces, and paying the project coordinator’s salary, will be covered by federal and provincial funding.

A committee of county council earlier this month endorsed hiring the coordinator and a final decision by council could come in April.

Funding for new school-based sites will go to the school boards, the report says

The 210 additional school spaces are expected to include 88 spaces at Gregory Hogan school, 17 spaces at Sacred Heart school in Port Lambton, 49 spaces at Errol Village school, 25 spaces at a combined public elementary and secondary school to be built in Forest and 31 spaces at locations still to be determined.

The community-based spaces are expected to include 49 new spaces in Sarnia for children with special needs, as well as the same number of new Indigenous child care spaces in the city.

Another 49 new spaces are targeted for south Sarnia, 32 for Lambton Shores, 16 for Brigden, 49 for Corunna and 67 for the Petrolia and Wyoming area.

Currently, 95 per cent of licensed child care operators in the county are non-profit organizations that don’t have staff with the expertise and experience needed to oversee large-scale expansion and construction projects, the report says.

That’s why county staff are proposing that Lambton hire a project manager to help them with the upcoming expansions.

Along with the new spaces under federal-provincial deal, Lambton is working to expand local licensed home child care spaces. It’s also working with the Conseil Scolaire Catholique Providence School Board to reopen a Francophone child care at St. Francis Xavier school in Sarnia that closed because of a shortage of staff.

As well as providing licensed child care spaces for about one in three children up to age five, the federal-provincial deal is intended to lower the average fee to $10 per day, by September 2025.

But staffing all of the new spaces is expected to be a challenge.

Lambton child care providers said last year they were short more than 120 workers needed to fill vacancies for spaces already in place.

Fitzpatrick said it’s an issue across the province.

Municipalities and operators are eager to meet the need for licensed child care spaces but finding workers to staff them is “another hurdle,” she said.

Locally, operators are holding regular job fairs in attempt to fill vacancies and they’ve partnered with Lambton College to begin a “fast-track early childhood development diploma,” Fitzpatrick said.

“They’re starting their first cohort this month,” she said.

“It shortens the program from two years to one year for staff already working in licensed childcare. That will help immensely.”

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