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The Huron Expositor • October 25, 2006 Page 3
Susan Hundertmark photo
Sandra Jansen, •director of the Seaforth Cooperative Children's Centre, holds the ribbon while Noah Rego, William Miller,
Alexander Fielding and Greg Huard get busy cutting the ribbon for the Best Start program.
Seaforth daycare centre celebrates
beginning of Best Start program
Susan Hundertmark
Lined up with their children's safety scissors in hand,
the four andfive-year-olds at Seaforth Cooperative
Children's Centre (SCCC) were eager to cut the ribbon
launching the new Best Start program last Wednesday.
The provincial Best Start program is providing
$637,062 to Huron County for 2006-07 to provide more
daycare spaces to children aged four and five at five
county daycare centres and schools.
In Seaforth, $25,000 was spent renovating several
rooms in the daycare centre and one additional staff
person was hired to run the new program. A maximum
of two new staff people could be hired at SCCC through
Best Start.
SCCC, which is licenced to provide care for 10 tod-
dlers, 24 preschoolers and 30 school -aged children, is
now also licenced to provide 20 Best Start spaces, says
Evy McDonagh, Huron County children services man-
ager.
"How much money SCCC gets will depend on the
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enrolment," says McDonagh.
The Best Start program is a collaboration between
the county and both school boards in Huron. While
Wingham, Goderich and Clinton are providing spaces
inside elementary schools, Seaforth and Exeter are in
the position of having daycare centres very close to ele-
mentary schools.
"Seaforth already had a really good relationship built
with the school, as did Exeter," said McDonagh.
"Right now, everyone is accommodated that needs it
but we'd like to see it grow," she said.
The Best Start program has increased enrolment
enough in the before and after school program that the
30 kids enrolled had to be split in half between the day-
care centre and the French room at the school.
SCCC director Sandra Jansen said the Best Start
program is also bringing more resources to the daycare
centre, with a public health nurse, a speech pathologist
and physiotherapists from the Thames Valley
Children's Services offering services in Seaforth.
"The idea is to have services here so people are not
having to drive into London," she says.
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