Emergency Child Care For Ontario Critical Frontline Workers

From grocery store clerks to hospital workers, provision of free child care services will support key workers

As Ontario schools move to remote learning due to the rapid increase in COVID-19 transmission across communities and the increasing risks posed to the public by COVID-19 variants, frontline workers will have access to emergency child care for their school-aged children, beginning Monday, April 19, 2021.

“Our government is once again stepping up to provide health care and other frontline workers with access to emergency child care as they continue to work around the clock in our fight against COVID-19,” said Stephen Lecce, Minister of Education. I want to thank Ontario’s dedicated child care staff who have stepped up time and again to provide your children with the care they deserve,” added Minister Lecce.

The provision of safe, quality child care remains a priority for the Ontario government and the role that child care workers have played has been vital to supporting children and families and keeping child care safe throughout the pandemic. In order to protect child care workers and keep child care settings open and available for working families, child care workers, including Registered Early Childhood Educators (RECEs), are eligible to be vaccinated as part of Phase Two of Ontario’s COVID-19 vaccine distribution plan.

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