School Age Child Care

We continue to work closely with local school boards to gain further clarity on the timing to begin programs at your child’s school. While we are working to begin delivery at the start of the school year, given evolving plans around the staggered start of school, we anticipate there may be delays.
At this point, our plan is to begin YMCA Before and After School Care in schools in the following communities as follows:

• Brantford: September 14
• Hamilton: September 14
• Burlington: Sept 14

Families can expect the same level of quality and care that we’ve always provided. We’ve introduced new toys and play experiences that support your child’s social and developmental needs while also ensuring a safe and healthy environment that may include individualized arts and craft activities and additional outdoor time.

Yes, all YMCA educators must complete a daily health screening prior to entering the school each day.

Yes. As required by the Ministry of Education and local public health authorities to support contact tracing, a daily health screening process is required for YMCA Before and After School Age Child Care which includes the following:

Before School Care
Families with children in before school care, will be required to complete a health screening upon arriving at program. To make for a quicker screening process in the morning, we ask families to conduct a wellness observation with your child prior to departing your home. Please note, if your child has even 1 symptom, please keep them home from program to ensure safety for the other children and our educators.

After School Care
As an additional layer of safety, your child’s educator will complete a wellness check with each child when they arrive for the afternoon program.

Consistent with public health guidelines which are also in place in schools, only YMCA educators and children are permitted in our program space at this time. We encourage families to allow extra time at pick-up and drop-off as we adapt to these new routines.

Upon arrival for drop-off, please call or ring the doorbell for entry and a member of our child care team will meet you at the entry doors. At this point, you will complete the daily health screening process with your child and a member of our YMCA Child Care team will escort your child into the building and into the program.

When you arrive to pick-up your child, please call or ring the doorbell and we will get your child prepared and they will meet you outside. We will do our best to be timely, but this could take a few minutes for us to gather up your child and their belongings and bring them to the door to see you.  

Like past years, you will receive a call from your child’s educator to introduce themselves. They will let you know what doors to use for drop off/pick up. We will have one designated door for entry and exit. Many of our classroom spaces have changed from last year in efforts to minimize impact with others in the school. If you miss your educators’ call please return it to ensure you have the most up to date info for the upcoming school year.

We are following directives from the school board/Ministry of Education at this time. If your school requires a mandatory mask for all grades, the YMCA program will follow this practise. If your school only requires masks for children in Grades 4-8, we will follow that process as well. We encourage all children in Grades K-3 to consider wearing masks in our programs.

Where space and staffing permits, junior and senior kindergarten as well as children in Grade 1 will be grouped together. As an extension of the groupings in the school environment, a sub-group will be created within our YMCA School Age Child Care program which can include children from different grades. Your child will remain with the same sub-group of children each day.