Health Care workers in Williams Lake now have more childcare options for their families.
On Friday May 16, the new Kidcare Early Learning Centre at Columneetza Campus was officially opened.
The facility has designated spaces for Health Care workers which Kelly Dillon, Clinical Operations Director for Interior Health West said is extremely exciting.
“I’ve lived in this community since 1997 and even as I had my children in the early 2000’s it was a very big gap and it created the inability for myself to be able to go back to work and support my Health Care team because I didn’t have childcare to do so.”
Dillon said having designated childcare spaces will help with retention and recruitment of Health Care workers.
“Because it is a large concern for many people. Families will make decisions on where they would like to work, what communities they would like to live in based on the support that they have and of course the support for their children is the most important. The opening of this new childcare facility will go a very long way in retention and recruitment for Health Care workers even if it’s the shorter shifts. Sometimes a four hour shift that we need coverage for, those ones are the easy ones to be able to find someone to fill if we had childcare to watch their kids for that period of time.”
The 119 seat Kidcare Early Learning Centre is operated by the Women’s Contact Society which Executive Director Irene Willsie said it’s been a journey to get to opening day.
“We’ve been working on the project since 2020 with the City and School District 27 and so it was a lot of work. The School District, City of Williams Lake, Williams Lake First Nation, and Interior Health, have all put their support behind the project. 15 licenced child care professionals who speak six different languages in addition to English were hired to work at the facility.”
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