Quality Child Care Matters!
A quality child care arrangement can enhance your child’s physical, emotional, social and cognitive development. Knowing that your child is cared for in a safe and stimulating environment will give you peace of mind and make the balance between work & school and family more manageable. It’s not easy to find quality child care so parents need to allow plenty of time to research options and make choices.
MCCA recommends parents choose licensed child care to ensure minimum standards of health, safety, and wellbeing are provided. Licensed facilities are monitored and regularly inspected by the Early Learning and Child Care Division, Government of Manitoba. Contact: 204-945-0776 or cdcinfo@gov.mb.ca
How to find licensed child care
Click here to visit the Early Learning and Child Care Division.
There is extremely high demand for licensed child care in Manitoba and an overall critical shortage of spaces. As of June 2018, there were 16,605 children on the online child care registry wait list. Of those, 12,838 required care within three months of June 2018. Multi-year wait lists are common in most urban areas.
In August 2021, the Province of Manitoba retired the Online Child Care Registry. It has been replaced with the following tool – Manitoba Child Care Search
MCCA recommends parents register on the online child care wait list prior to birth, or one to two years in advance of the preferred enrollment date.
About Unlicensed Private Home Child Care
A person can provide private home child care, without a provincial license to a maximum of four children under age 12. No more than two of these children can be under age 2. These numbers include the care provider’s own children, and any other children living in the home.
Unlicensed Private Home Child Care
Parents are entirely responsible for inspecting the private home child care and monitoring care provided by unlicensed in home providers. The only standards and accountability in an unlicensed child care home are those established and enforced by the parent utilizing the service.
If you suspect someone is violating the law about unlicensed private home child care, contact the Early Learning and Child Care Division at 204-945-0776.
How to choose quality child care
Other resources
Early years are learning years and the quality of care and environment will affect overall child development. It is critical parents choose child care carefully to ensure warm, nurturing relationships and lots of play based experiences are available.
Why Play?
Families Canada is offering information to parents and child care providers on play and child development. The brochures cover age groups 0-6 months, 6-12 months, 1-2 years, 2-3 years, 3-4 years, and 4-5 years.
These brochures are available in 11 languages: Arabic, Chinese (Simplified), Hindi, Portuguese, Punjabi, Russian, Somali, Spanish, Tagalog, Tamil and Vietnamese.