Dave Barr Community Centre (photo by Shaun Penner)

By Liam Verster

Child care

Child care services at Dave Barr Community Centre to end in 2020

Oct 29, 2019 | 12:00 PM

As of June 30,2020, the City of Grande Prairie will no longer be running child care services out of the Dave Barr Community Centre.

This past September, the City began exploring it’s future with the child care service it provides the Community Centre, and as of Thursday, October 24, that process closed, and the lease for the space has not been signed.

Arlen Miller, Community Services Director for the City, says they are constantly reviewing the services the city provides, and after looking at the community centre’s child care program, they decided it wasn’t a necessity.

“Part of that review process is looking at the history of why we got into the business in the first place, and then also looking at who else in the community provides the services,” said Miller. “For day care and child care services, there’s a number of other agencies in the City of Grande Prairie that do provide it. So, considering that, we made a decision that we no longer have to be in the business of providing, that the others could certainly provide that service.”

Miller says about 46 children will be affected by ending the Dave Barr Child Care Service. 37 children are registered in the pre-kindergarten program, and nine children are registered in the toddler program.

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He says the program will run until June 30, 2020, in order to give the families that use the community centre plenty of time to find a new child care provider in the city.

After the service has ended, the space at Dave Barr Community Centre will be leased out, though Miller couldn’t share any additional information on what the space would be used for, as no official agreements have been signed.