The John McGivney Children's Centre is taking the next step to find a new operator for its daycare program.
Enough 'expressions of interest' have come back to justify moving to the 'request for proposals' stage. The RFP has been released today.
CEO Elaine Whitmore says only operators in the Windsor-Essex area are being considered.
The daycare program has 38 children in two classrooms, while 20 more kids are on a wait list.
Whitmore hopes contracting out the program will help get more kids into the classroom.
"It's well designed to be fully accessible for those who have mobility issues and we want to make sure we're getting full capacity use of that for the children in our community," says Whitmore. "We look forward to having a partner who can help us to do that."
Whitmore says the centre has had a hard time of running the daycare program at full capacity and is hoping a new operator can help.
"To have that mix of an inclusive program where we do, as a children's treatment centre, certainly have a number of children with special needs, but we have always historically looked for that mix of children who are typically developing and I think for a number of reasons we have not been able to pull those numbers in," says Whitmore.
The goal is to have the new operator running the program by July or August. The deadline to respond to the RFP is April 21.