The Province has announced licensed child care centres will be permitted to return to full operating capacity as of September 1.
While this may be welcome news for some parents eager to get back to work, a lot of licensed child care centres may not actually be able to reopen or to increase the number of children they serve.
AM800's Kristylee Varley spoke with Andrea Hannen on The Afternoon News.
She's the Executive Director at the Association of Day Care Operators of Ontario.
Hannen says many centres have gone months without revenue and are waiting for provincial funding to retrofit their buildings for COVID-19.
"Whether or not you're funding for March, April and May has actually arrived depends largely on which municipality your centre is located, and without that funding, a lot of centres just don't have the money to reopen," she says.
One factor is the need for more staff, according to Hannen.
"Increased cleaning and disinfecting, smaller group sizes, keeping groups together so, if there is an outbreak it can easily be tracked and limited," added Hannen.
She says supplies used for activities are also going to be a huge cost to fully reopen.
"Thinking about how you're going to do your programing, because typically we would be seeing a lot of sharing of toys and crayons and so forth in a day care; well that's not the best situation when you're trying to minimize the spread," she says.
Some of the provinces reopening requirements include a COVID-19 response plan, physical distancing and mask use enforcement, daily screening of children and staff for symptoms and the barring of non-essential visitors from the building.
— with files from AM800's Kristylee Varley