Good afternoon Laura –
I’m happy to help support you to answer these questions. I’ve drafted a response below which you are welcome to share. Links are embedded to support your communications.
Hope this helps,
Holly Moran (she, her)
Assistant Deputy Minister
Early Years and Child Care
Ministry of Education
On January 3, 2022 the Province announced a range of time-limited public health actions to help curb the spread of COVID-19. As part of this announcement, starting January 5, all elementary schools, publicly funded and private, will be closed for in-person learning.
Recognizing the foundational nature of child care in providing a trusted and safe environment for children so that parents can work, starting January 10th, to support the parents of school-aged children who may not be able to support their child’s learning or care at home, the Ministry of Education will once again be working with partners to implement an Emergency Child Care (ECC) program. ECC will be available for school-aged children of eligible front-line workers, at no cost to eligible parents, during the period when schools are operating remotely.
The government is re-instituting the same eligibility list that was in place for the Spring 2021 ECC program, including health care workers, child care workers, grocery store and pharmacy workers, and those working directly in the COVID-19 vaccination effort. The full list of those eligible for emergency child care can be found here.
Families are asked to monitor the website of their local municipality for updates regarding ECC. For website and contact information for your local service system manager, a full list is available here.
