New West city council wants to work with the school district to update a child-care protocol that was developed in 2009.
On Jan. 30, council received a report about a renewed child-care protocol that would “set a framework for closer collaboration” regarding the development of new and the retention of existing child-care spaces. Council approved a recommendation directing staff to forward a letter to the school district formally inviting them to jointly develop a renewed child-care protocol.
“The rationale for a renewed child-care protocol would be to re-establish a commitment between the city and school district towards collaborative planning, efficient use of resources, and responsiveness to community needs, related to licensed child-care spaces within their control,” said the report.
According to the staff report, several recent events have precipitated the need to renew the protocol, including the school district’s announcement that it needed to reclaim space in downtown schools, currently used by two non-profit child-care facilities, for classroom spaces.
Coun. Tasha Henderson, who has been appointed to the city’s affordable housing and childcare task force, said she’s really glad to see the protocol with the school district being renewed and to hear that the province is interested in looking for opportunities in future builds to bridge that transition between daycare and schools.
“I think this is an issue that sometimes at the surface seems like it's outside the city's jurisdiction, but it's so crucial to the livability of our community,” she said. “We have one of the fastest growing demographics of millennials, and with them often come droves of young children.”
Henderson said there are struggles with child care.
“We're often talking about the struggles that we face with child care, and certainly we have a long way to go to meet our need, but I really wanted to thank the social planning department in particular for really pushing the development of child-care spaces in a variety of creative ways and using many tools that we have in the city,” she said. “(I) just note that since 2010, the city has helped facilitate the development of 1,179 new child-care spaces. And so, while we're usually talking about the struggles we have around these amenities, we've also done some really good work here in New Westminster, and I think it's something to be proud of. So I just want to say thank you to staff.”
