Children's Services

COVID-19 Update

Emergency child care services for children 3.8 years to 12 years old (junior kindergarten, senior kindergarten and school aged children) is available for provincially-identified essential service workers in the City and County of Peterborough beginning Monday April 19.

The emergency child care service is provided at no cost to eligible families of identified essential service workers under the provincial program that is administered by the City of Peterborough. 

In order to be eligible, families must have no other option for child care and both parents/all adults must be working outside of their home. Families can indicate they are an essential worker and register for emergency child care at OneHSN.com/Peterborough. Families who have used Emergency Child Care in the past must re-register. Registration will be managed by the chosen emergency child care agency. Final approvals will be completed by City of Peterborough staff. Registrations for new Emergency Child Care spaces will open on Thursday, April 15.

It is the family’s responsibility to apply for and follow up with their chosen Emergency Child Care agency. If a space is not available at the location the family prefers, the family should apply else where. There are currently 18 child care sites providing emergency child care.

With the exception of the emergency child care agencies, all other operators of before and after school programs are required to close on April 19, 2021 and are prohibited from charging fees or otherwise penalizing parents during the closure period (e.g., parents must not lose their respective child care spaces). Families that currently receive a child care fee subsidy may contact their case manager through email or phone if needed.

The Premier of Ontario announced a province wide shutdown of in-person learning at all publicly-funded and private schools beginning April 19, 2021. All publicly funded and private elementary and secondary schools will move to remote learning. 

Licensed centre based and home child care can remain open for the duration of the shutdown. At this time most licensed child care centres in the City and County of Peterborough are open and providing regular full day services for children aged 0 – 3.8 years.

EarlyON Child and Family Centres will be closed to in-person programs and services during the Provincial State of Emergency. This means that neither indoor nor outdoor programming can be offered at these locations during the shutdown. EarlyON Centres will continue to offer a large variety of virtual programming until during this time.

 Children's Services is committed to providing services that:

• Foster early learning and child development
• Support children being cared for in a safe, nurturing environment
• Support the inclusion of children with special needs in licensed child care
• Enable parents to work or undertake training or education leading to employment
• Provide linkages to other support services

We do this by:

• Supporting families who need help with the daily cost of child care
• Offering support services for children in licensed child care
• Offering EarlyON programs
• Partnering with licensed child care centres in the community and Municipal Child Care Centres
• Offering funding opportunities to licensed child care agencies
• Professional and community planning