Welcome to our new website!

Welcome! We hope you find our new website helpful and easier to navigate. It's now as easy to use on your smartphone as your desktop. Take a tour and please tell us what you think.

Funding for Child Care Providers

If you are a licensed child care provider, you can apply for the Canada-Wide Early Learning and Child Care (CWELCC) Agreement.

A sample CWELCC funding agreement is available, outlining the terms and conditions licensees must follow after enrolling. Reach out to our Children's Services team to request a copy.

The City of St. Thomas and Elgin County can allocate CWELCC funding to for-profit operators only up to 10% of all funded operators. Once we reach this threshold, we cannot allocate further CWELCC funding to new for-profit child care programs.

Opportunities for the creation of new CWELCC-funded licensed programs will be publicly posted on Bids and Tenders. Applications for new CWELCC-funded programs from new operators will not be reviewed outside of the formal procurement process.

Registered Early Childhood Educators (RECEs) and other child care staff play a key role in early childhood development. A wage gap exists between RECEs working in the publicly funded education system and those in licensed child care, which makes it harder to retain qualified staff.

The Wage Enhancement Grant (WEG) and Home Child Care Enhancement Grant (HCCEG) support wage increases for eligible child care professionals in licensed settings, to help retain staff and support stable, high-quality child care.

  • the WEG supports an increase of up to $2 per hour, plus 17.5% in benefits, for licensed program staff and home visitors
  • the HCCEG supports an increase of up to $20 per day for home child care providers contracted with a licensed agency

Goals of the wage enhancement:

  • close the wage gap between RECEs in the education and child care sectors
  • help operators retain RECEs and other child care staff
  • support greater employment and income security

City of St. Thomas's role: We administer and distribute the WEG and HCCEG in St. Thomas and Elgin County. We may enter into agreements with eligible providers to distribute funding and determine each provider's allocation.

Contact Us

City of St. Thomas
545 Talbot Street, PO Box 520,
St. Thomas, Ontario N5P 3V7
Canada

Phone: (519) 631-1680
customerservice@stthomas.ca 

Customer Service form

Sign up to our News and Notices

Stay up to date on the City's activities, events, programs and operations by subscribing to our news and notices.

Sign Up Today!