Daycare expansion almost complete
Lookout - Esquimalt
Mary Ellen Green
November 24, 2008

Renovations to turn three classrooms at the former Lampson Street Elementary School into a daycare centre are nearing completion, and the Military Family Resource Centre (MFRC) is expecting them to be filled with children by January 2009.

Twenty-six children will be cared for during the day when the new facility opens. That’s doubling the number of spots available in the MFRC’s current daycare program that runs out of the Colwood Pacific Activity Centre.

There are 150 children from military families on the current waitlist for MFRC daycare, with the majority in the infant/toddler category, and age three and under. …

“There is a city-wide shortage of daycare spots in the infant/toddler age group because there is a shortage of trained early childhood educators (ECE) with the infant/toddler specialization,” he says. “It is also the most expensive day care to run because we need one trained ECE for every four infants, as opposed to one for eight in the three to five age group.”….

The next challenge facing Branch and the team at the MFRC daycare program is finding enough trained staff to operate the facility and get approved for licensing in December.

The program is only available to the military families. …