Child Care Awareness Days Proclaimed

Children, child-care workers and families joined Premier John Hamm and David Morse, Minister of Community Services, at Province House today, June 3, for a flag-raising and children's entertainment celebrating Child Care Awareness Days.

Premier John Hamm has proclaimed June 2003 as Child Care Awareness Days in Nova Scotia, a time set aside to promote the importance of quality child care and the value of early childhood educators to children, families and the community.

"We know that the first five years of a child's life are extremely important in shaping the rest of a child's life," said Premier Hamm. "Child-care centres play an important role in helping children develop the tools they need to become healthy adults."

Child Care Awareness Days is sponsored by Child Care Connections N.S. and has been held annually for the past 10 years to recognize the positive impact of quality child care. Giving all children a good start in life is known to be a wise investment for families and their communities.

The province of Nova Scotia and the Department of Community Services launched the Early Childhood Development Initiative in 2000 as part of a five-year joint federal-provincial initiative to strengthen child care in Nova Scotia.

"This has been an exciting time for Early Childhood Development in Nova Scotia," said Mr. Morse. "We look forward to continuing to work with our partners to enhance services for young children in our province."

Some of the initiatives that the province has announced include:

• $1.3 million in grants to help early childhood training institutions create new professional-development opportunities for child-care staff
• 329 new full-day spaces and 74 part-day spaces created through new start-up centres and expansion grants for existing child-care centres
• 100 new subsidized, portable child-care spaces to benefit the province's low- and moderate-income families
• $450,000 has been invested to create child-care resource and referral centres that give parents new resources to access local caregivers.