New night care centres to help low-income parents take care of children

Parents, especially low-income single parents, will soon benefit from much-needed child care support as the Ministry of Human Services and Social Security will establish night care centres in 2023.

This is according to the Assistant Director of the Child Care and Protection Agency Levine Gouveia, who spoke to reporters at the sidelines of a recent event.

According to her, these night care centres will function similarly to common day care centres. Essentially, parents will be able to leave their child or children in the care of trained professionals while they work.

“We have come to recognise as a ministry that many single parents have the intention of working and providing for their children honestly, many of them are security guards and so.

“…at the community level, we are bringing these night shelters on to provide for children these safe spaces,” Gouveia said.

Moreover, Gouveia noted that these centres will provide support to low-income families including those where both parents earn less than $200,000 together or single-parent households where the parent earns less than $100,000 monthly.

Gouveia also noted that the untimely death of three children, who were trapped in a house in the community of Barnwell, aback Mocha on the East Bank of Demerara (EBD), evidences the need for such centres. The children’s mother, a security guard, left them in each other’s care while we went to work.

The News Room understands that at least three shelters will be established next year, with at least one in Region Four (Demerara- Mahaica).

Previously, Minister of Human Services and Social Security Dr. Vindhya Persaud floated the idea of night care centres, cognisant that many parents work at nights and have no safe spaces to leave their children.

And so, she stated that people who receive training from the ministry’s Women Innovation and Investment Network (WIIN) could be employed as caregivers.

The Child Care and Protection Agency will be tasked with training and licensing those caregivers to guarantee that children receive standard care.

Importantly too, President Dr. Irfaan Ali, in October, announced that the government would establish day care centres all across the country to support young mothers and teachers.