Your Input Needed: Saskatchewan Child Care Centres Funding Research Project

Are you interested in understanding more about the Canada-wide Early Learning and Child Care (CWELCC) system in Saskatchewan? Would you like to offer your personal perspectives as we study the effect of system building and operational funding frameworks on our child care workforce and educator retention, on program quality, and on system expansion? Are you operating a program that is struggling with current funding structures, or is your program doing well?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, we are inviting you to share your experiences as single-site or multi-site licensed and regulated early learning and child care centre operators in Saskatchewan.

As we enter into the next five years of our agreement with the Federal government, it is crucial for the early learning and child care (ELCC) sector to understand how funding and policy affects all licensed child care programs in our province.

All centre operators are invited to take part, as it is valuable to understand the entire spectrum of current child care centre operations. It is important that we examine what is enabling programs to be successful, and what is causing programs to exist in a state of financial hardship.

This longitudinal study is intended to follow the next five years of the CWELCC system and to monitor how changes to funding and policies affect programs in real time. Reports will be released annually to share anonymized data collected from licensed and regulated programs in Saskatchewan. It is our hope that the ELCC sector can use these reports to understand the larger scope of the CWELCC system. These reports will be publicly shared with the sector and other early learning stakeholders to help guide conversations about the real impact of policy and how the CWLECC system can transform our current child care landscape into a thriving child care system.

If you represent a single-site program, with only one centre or program reported on your audited financial statement, please select the link for single site centre.

If you represent a multi-site organization, with multiple centres or program locations reported on one audited financial statement, please select the link for multi-site organization.

Please complete the questionnaire relevant to your program by July 8, 2026.

Participants who consent to providing information and remain in the research study will be entered into a draw to win a $150.00 Amazon gift card. Thank you in advance for your time and participation, we look forward to sharing results with you all in the future.

Please note: We intend to develop a similar project for homes in the future, but we are mindful of the complexity of the financial aspects of operating a home business and will be engaging with the home sector to ensure their survey asks the appropriate questions to get a full picture of the operation of their programs.