Opening a Licensed Child Care Program

All licensed child care programs in the County of Middlesex are eligible to enter into a Child Care Fee Subsidy Agreement with the County. Fee Subsidy is a program through which families are assisted with the cost of licensed care. This program helps families by paying a portion of the child care cost to the child care centre on their behalf. 

To learn more about Fee Subsidy from the family perspective, please visit the County of Middlesex’s Child Care Fee Subsidy website. 

The Wage Enhancement Grant is a wage enhancement available to all licensed child care programs in Middlesex County. Eligible staff include educators in licensed programs who make an hourly base wage less than the established cut-off wage for the grant. These staff are eligible to receive $2 per hour in wage enhancements through WEG. 

General Operating Grant is a monthly payment made to licensed, centre-based, school-based and home-based child care programs in Middlesex County. Designed to offset program operating costs, stabilize service levels, and improve access to high quality care, this grant is calculated as a dollar amount per point. These point allocations depend on the operating capacities of your program. GOG funding can only be used for certain ongoing costs, including but not limited to, utilities, administration, resources, supplies, maintenance and repairs, and staff wages and benefits. 

The Canada-Wide Early Learning and Child Care Agreement is a transformational investment in affordable licensed child care for families across our communities. Families with children under 6 years of age in a participating licensed child care have access to significantly reduced child care fees. This means families are benefiting from cost savings that immediately impact the quality of their lives.  

Licensed child care operators interested in participating in the Canada-Wide Early Learning and Child Care Agreement can enroll through an application process and agreement with the County of Middlesex.

Licensed child care providers must let parents know if they are either choosing to participate or choosing not to participate in the Canada-Wide Early Learning and Child Care Agreement.   

The focus on affordability is great news for families. At the same time, the longer-term vision for the agreement goes beyond affordability to include quality, accessibility, inclusivity, and workforce support as vital components of a healthy child care and early years system in Ontario.

The County of Middlesex is currently updating the Service System Plan, which will guide the Child Care sector in Middlesex County from 2024-2028. This renewed Plan will outline the goals for child care space expansion over this time period.

The Ministry of Education has identified the following indicators as priorities in space expansion for children ages 0-6 years through the Canada-Wide Early Learning and Child Care (CWELCC) system:

• Number of existing child care spaces relative to population size
• Proportion of individuals whose language most often spoken at home is French
• Proportion of individuals who identify as Indigenous
• Proportion of the population that immigrated between the years of 2011-2021
• A metric reflecting the scoring of the combined measures of the Early Development Instrument, Low Income Measures, and 0-4 population.

These measures have been assessed at the municipality level throughout the County. Additionally, it has been identified that the County of Middlesex is to maintain their existing ratio of not-for-profit and for-profit spaces for the 0-6 year age group.

To assist licensees with planning for future call-outs, the County of Middlesex is sharing updated data about our community. The data provided below is for information purposes only and is subject to change at any time based on availability of data, new spaces opening, provincial requirements, and changes in our communities. A higher score in the table below indicates that the County of Middlesex considers that municipality to be of higher priority for the opening of new child care spaces for the 0-6 year age group. It does not mean that future spaces will only be eligible for licensing in the highest-priority municipalities, however, as there is need throughout the County.

The County of Middlesex maintains detailed information about specific municipalities. Licensees planning for expansion are encouraged to reach out to the Middlesex County Children’s Services Team to learn more.