On-site child-minding: Our multicultural child-minding centre program strives to foster the development of the child socially, physically, intellectually, creatively and emotionally with a multi-cultural awareness. Child-minding services are offered for free to children of parents in the Language Training Program (LINC), Life Skills and Educational Programs & Workshops, Summer English Conversation classes and Women’s Program.
Our Centre has been operating as a Licensed Community Care Facility since March 2012 and as such we adhere to the requirements under the Child Care Licensing Regulation. We provide service to children from birth to 5 years of age to a maximum of 24 child minding units. We also accept children up to 12 years old on school district Professional Development days and other IMSS special events. Activities in our centre are developed by the staff and are presented as weekly and monthly themes which are refined to reflect the age groups (0 to 18 months, 18 to 36 months and 3 years to school age).
Our child-minding staff is a very diverse group. The curriculum covers understanding culture and diversity, setting up an inclusive and welcoming environment, keeping the children safe (with content specific to immigrant children), working with newcomer parents and families and English language acquisition in children.
Our centre is recognized provincially and locally for its innovative ideas of working with newcomer children. The children are provided with a healthy and nutritious snack to the children in accordance with the Canada Food Guide. We strive to establish best practices around nutrition, food safety, hygiene and eating behaviour. The children have really enjoyed sampling new foods that they are being exposed to for the first time. Cultural and religious preferences are taken into consideration.