By Cecilia Nasmith/Today’s Northumberland
Northumberland County is co-ordinating with local child care providers to offer eligible health-care and other front-line workers with no-charge emergency child-care services for their school-aged children, starting Jan. 10.
The move is a response to Monday’s announcement by the province that Ontario will temporarily move to a modified Step Two of the Roadmap to Reopen as of 12:01 a.m. on Wednesday, Jan. 5.
This will include the introduction of additional time-limited public health measures to help slow the spread of the highly-transmissible Omicron variant of COVID-19, including the transition of all publicly funded and private schools to remote learning until at least Jan. 17.
Timelines for returning to in-person learning will be subject to public health trends and operational considerations. During the remote-learning period, licensed child care for infant, toddler and pre-school children may continue – however, licensed centre-based care for school-aged children (including before- and after-school programming) will be closed.
The province has established a list of essential health-care and front-line professions who will be eligible for no-cost emergency child care for school-aged children during this period, as of Jan. 10.
“As local health-care and front-line workers continue to deliver services that are vital to the health and well-being of our community during the COVID-19 pandemic, Northumberland County and local child-care providers are co-ordinating to provide eligible essential workers with access to emergency child-care services,” Director of Community and Social Services Lisa Horne said in the press release.
“To facilitate health and safety measures, limited spaces for emergency child care will be available, and care may need to be prioritized based on the occupation and type of care required, in alignment with provincial criteria.”
To apply for emergency child care, residents are invited to complete an application online at Northumberland.ca/ EmergencyChildCare/.
