By Lloyd Mackey

BY this fall, the Christian-oriented Kids Klub expects to have full-time child care spaces available for children age three to five.

The development would mark a broadening of the organization’s role in child care – one that currently involves close to 500 children in 18 different programs.

There will be 16 spaces in the new program, to start, but Kids Klub leaders believe there is a “huge” need to be filled, which could result in a rapid expansion of the program.

Tertia Yates, Kids Klub executive director, outlined the plans for moving into full time pre-school day care during an interview with BCCN .

Until now, the only activity for pre-kindergarten children was educational in nature, and operated for only two hours a day.

Yates maintained that the organization’s clear yet carefully-crafted  stance, based in Christian values, has helped rather than hindered its acceptance – both with parents and with public child care regulatory agencies.

She said the use of Veggie Tales  videos, use of brief daily devotionals with an emphasis on good morals, and the use of puppets to enunciate biblical concepts, are all part of the process of communicating Christian values in a pluralistic community setting.

Yates noted that Kids Klub programs operate presently in nine public schools, three churches and two recreation centres, with the remainder in a variety of community facilities.

Until now, the activities have been scheduled in after-school and before-school time slots for children from age five to 12. The organization has been operating since 1990.

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The practice is for Kids Klub to rent the facilities from the schools, churches or other agencies in which they operate.

Staffers are educated and equipped to handle the care of children, taking into account each child’s social, physical, emotional, cultural and intellectual needs, according to the organization’s website.  

A program for special needs children is handled in cooperation with the provincial children’s and family ministry, and is carried out at Queen Alexandra Centre for Children’s Health in Gordon Head.

Yates said Kids Klub is a non-profit registered charity that draws its funding from fees paid by parents, public subsidies and charitable donations.

She suggested it is hard to calculate the exact impact of public subsidies on the operation because such funds may flow either directly or indirectly.

The new $100 per month federal payment to Canadian families with children of pre-school or school age likely filters through, Yates indicated, because it gives many parents the choice of using child care facilities if they wish to.

Among the services unique to Kids Klub, she said, is a healthy lunch program which provides 13,000 lunches a year for distribution to children whose parents are unable to make such a provision. The Victoria Foundation is among the donors to that particular initiative.

Yates pointed out that the full-time program of day camp activity available in the summer is more avowedly Christian in its outreach than the after-school and part-time school term activities.

           www.kidsklub.ca

June 2007