BC Child Care Subsidies
Child Care Fee Reduction Initiative (CCFRI), 2022 Updates
The British Columbia provincial government has just taken a huge step forward in supporting parents seeking childcare and early learning opportunities for their children. On September 23, 2022, they announced exciting changes to the Child Care Fee Reduction Initiative (CCFRI) program that could save you an additional $550, in addition to your current subsidies. This will help more families afford the childcare they need and help their children get an educational head-start in life.
Here’s what BC’s eligible families need to know about the Child Care Fee Reduction Initiative and the new changes that take effect on December 1, 2022.
What is CCFRI?
The Child Care Fee Reduction Initiative (CCFRI) is a provincially funded child care subsidy program that provides funds to eligible, licenced child care providers (like CEFA) to reduce and stabilize child care costs for families. Child care providers apply for funding on your behalf and pass the subsidy savings to you in discounted care and tuition fees.
This program provides BC families access to high-quality, affordable early learning child care. This program is available for eligible group or family facilities that offer toddler or infant care for children up to Kindergarten age.
What this means for parents
This means you’ll likely see an additional subsidy on your child care early learning school tuition fees starting in December. Your care provider will communicate the new subsidy amount to you before your invoice. You can expect up to an additional $550 off your monthly payment for tuition, in addition to any amounts you previously qualified for. This means parents eligible for the full amount could see a total of $900 off their monthly tuition costs.
Unlike the Affordable Child Care Benefit, parents do NOT need to apply for this program. If your child is enrolled in a participating school (including CEFA), this benefit is a monthly subsidy automatically discounted per month per child starting in December. A fee estimator will be uploaded to the BC government program website in October, or you can talk to your child’s school for an estimate now.
Here’s a chart provided on the CCRFI website that estimates your subsidy amounts for group care centres:
Group (centre-based) child care
Approximately 96% of eligible childcare centres in BC qualify for this subsidy program. It’s bringing the average cost of licenced, full-time childcare from $53 a day to $21 per day, opening it up to more families who couldn’t previously afford the cost of child care.
How to access more information
CEFA Early Learning is proud to participate in the CCFRI program to enable our families to access the subsidies this program offers. If you have any questions about this program or child care subsidies you may be eligible for, contact your local CEFA principal.
Read more about the Child Care Fee Reduction Initiative on the Government of BC website or contact your local CEFA Principal for more information.