Along with many other municipal governments, Wellington County has launched an emergency childcare program during COVID-19.
Luisa Artuso, the director of Children's Early Years Division with the county, said the program is designed for specific workers who have no other alternative.
"To provide critical service workers with childcare at no cost to the families. So for Wellington service delivery area, it is for those who live and/or work in the County of Wellington or the City of Guelph."
Artuso said Guelph and Fergus are the locations of the county-staffed children's centres. She said the waitlist is already quite extensive and a pre-launch survey for the program revealed parents wanting a number of different childcare options.
"So we currently have 180 families on our waitlist and that totals 307 children. These families are saying that they would like childcare in childcare centres as well as home childcare in the provider's home and in their homes."
The county is providing all three of those types of childcare to mitigate the amount of contact between children. Artuso also says they are taking many precautions like restricting access to childcare centres, limiting workers to only a few children to work with, and much more.
"We have daily screening processes, ongoing healthcare monitoring, enhanced sanitary practices and enhanced reporting requirements. So we are taking this very seriously and we're making sure that the environment is as safe as possible."
