Childcare Enhancement Grant Program in Canada

Deadline: 29-Oct-21

The City of Vancouver is seeking applications for its Childcare Enhancement Grant Program to support the quality and affordability of licensed programs to ensure access to those families most in need of the support. Funds are to be used for program enhancement and not for capital expenditures.

The Civic Childcare Enhancement Grant program is for non-profit licensed, group child care, preschool, school-aged care and occasional child care programs that serve primarily high need families.

The first goal of the Healthy City Strategy, the City’s strategic plan for social sustainability, is A Good Start: Vancouver’s children have the best chance of enjoying a healthy childhood. The aspirational target is, by 2025, to have at least 85 percent of Vancouver’s children developmentally ready for school when they enter kindergarten. Childcare grants are one tool the City employs to support this goal.

Objectives

Eligible objectives are:

Assisting programs serving low and modest income families to reduce parent fees;
Strengthening coordinated administration through the community hub model;
Providing a food supplement program (e.g., hot lunch and breakfast); and,
Enhancing staff ratios to better serve high-need children.

Focus Areas

Children from single parent families;
Children who receive full or prorated Affordable Child Care Benefit;
Children who receive full Affordable Child Care Benefit and the parent portion is paid by the Ministry of Children and Family Development;
Indigenous children;
Children from new immigrant or refugee families (in Canada less than 5 years);
Children from immigrant or refugee families who are unable to access Provincial Childcare subsidy due to reasons other than financial eligibility;
Children who have been assessed as having extra support needs but who do not receive additional funding through the Ministry of Children and Family Development; and/or,
Children who speak a language other than English at home

Funding Information

The maximum grant is $27,000 per qualifying program (maximum 3 programs per organization). Organizations operating more than three childcare programs should select their top three priority programs, and will need to submit a separate application on the grants management system for each program.

Eligibility Criteria

Primary Criteria
- All organizations applying to a City of Vancouver social policy grant program must meet the following criteria:
  - Be a registered non-profit society, community service co-op or social enterprise wholly owned by a non-profit and in good standing with the Registrar of Companies; OR be a registered charity, in good standing with the Canadian Revenue Agency;
  - Have an independent, active governing body composed of volunteers. The by-laws must have provisions that no Board director can be remunerated for serving as a director and that no staff member can be a voting member of the board or executive;
  - The organization must demonstrate accommodation, welcomeness and openness to people of all ages, abilities, sexual orientation, gender identities (including trans, gender-variant and two-spirit people), ethnicities, cultural backgrounds, religions, languages, under-represented communities and socio-economic conditions in its policies, practices and programs, except in instances where the exclusion of some group is required for another group to be effectively targeted;
  - The Organization must be in compliance with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the British Columbia Human Rights Code.
  - Have demonstrated functional capacity and sufficient resources to deliver the programs to which the City is being asked to contribute;
  - Deliver the funded program in Vancouver to Vancouver residents
Secondary Criteria
- In addition to meeting the primary criteria, organizations applying for a Civic Childcare Enhancement Grant must satisfy the following:
  - Monthly fees may not be greater than the fees listed by license type in the Allowable Childcare Fee Schedule, found at the end of this document. Any fee increase must be consistent with the guidelines of the Province’s Child Care Fee Reduction Initiative.
  - If applying for a grant for an infant/toddler and/or 3-5 year childcare program, the organization MUST have opted-in to the Child Care Fee Reduction Initiative funded by the Province of BC;
  - Serve a high need, ‘at risk’ population or neighbourhood as determined through census information and Early Development Instrument (EDI) data;
  - Demonstrate a need for the funding through program budgets and financial statements.