Queens Daycare extension under construction, September 2023. Photo Scott Christian

The South Shore chapter of the YMCA will take over operations of Queens Daycare.

President of the Queens Day Care Association Scott Christian says putting the centre in the hands of the YMCA will ensure the sustainability and long-term solvency of the daycare, while offering improved programming by providing more opportunities to professionalize and better support staff.

“It has become so incredibly arduous and challenging to stay apprised of, and responsive to the shifting landscape around early childhood development,” said Christian.

He says the provincial and federal governments have recognized the importance of providing childcare and have really thrown their support into the sector.

Christian says initiatives like $10 a day daycare, better training and increased wages for workers are all very welcome but all those measures come with a level of oversight that is difficult, if not impossible for a volunteer board to meet.

“When you have that type of corporate infrastructure you can just leave the day-to-day of, the on-site director really has to worry about relationships with the families and supporting the staffing compliment right?” said Christian. “Like, the actual day-to-day stuff and not having to worry about maintaining the building, managing the building, you know, and then reporting for funding and budgeting and you know, and then the list goes on and on and on.”

According to CEO South Shore YMCA Yvonne Smith, that is where they come in.

“There’s a lot happening with the, with the changes within the childcare environment and so we were really one of the first if not the first to transition a for-profit childcare to a license not-for-profit and that was the Greenwood transition which we did, and since then we’ve been working on some others,” said Smith.

Christian believes the YMCA is the right organization to lead the daycare in the years ahead.

“They’re really well suited. They are engaged and involved in provision of licensed childcare throughout Southwest Nova Scotia and this just is kind of, for me, it’s the next chapter, the next chapter of Queens daycare,” said Christian. “[It] makes a lot of sense I think that I applaud what we as a volunteer community group have been able to do, but it’s just time to recognize that the best decision for the operation is to allow an organization who’s better suited to be able to take it to the next level.”

Christian says the Queens Daycare Association and YMCA have been working on the deal for months.

They agreed they would wait to make the announcement until the association had an opportunity to inform staff and families of the change.

Now that the details have been worked out and those groups have been notified, Christian anticipates the YMCA will take over the day-to-day operations in early November.

To hear the broadcast of this story click play below.

E-mail: edhalversonnews@gmail.com

Photo Ed Halverson

A new youth drop-in centre has opened in Liverpool.

The YMCA celebrated the grand opening of their Liverpool location at 40 Water Street on Monday.

The centre will be a place for youth to enjoy activities, access the internet, play video games, or talk with an outreach worker.

CEO of the Southwest chapter of the YMCA Yvonne Smith says they’ve just opened the doors and will begin a process to tailor the centre’s offerings to those of the community.

“Whenever we enter into a community, we absolutely want to engage with those who we’ll be serving. So, our first goal will be to work with youth to find out what their needs are, so we definitely want to ensure that they are part of the process, part of the planning, and you know, involved in all of it and they have been,” said Smith. “So, even to the design of how you know centre will look we make sure that the youth have their input into that.”

Along with recreational activities the centre will also cooking programs and food to attendees.

Smith says the YMCA’s mandate is to provide services to the community, free of charge.

“One of the, you know, the commitments that we’ve made to youth programming in our communities is that they’ll be barrier free. So, we ensure that there’s not a fee to access,” said Smith. “And so to do so, we do, we turn over every stone and make sure that we access all the grants that are available, so it might be through community health boards and foundations, through United Way, through the province, through various grants, and we honestly probably have at any given time, you know, dozens and dozens of grants underway to make sure that we can financially support the work that we do.”

The drop-in was temporarily being run from the Liverpool Curling Club but Smith says they wanted a location of their own to provide more programming. The Water Street location was important to ensure students could walk from school and to other parts of town.

Smith says now that the YMCA has established themselves in Liverpool, they’ll be working with youth and other organizations to learn what service gaps they may be able to fill.

For information on programs and hours of operation head to the YMCA website.

To hear the broadcast of this story click play below.

E-mail: edhalversonnews@gmail.com