Yes. All licensed child care programs that receive funding from the Region of Waterloo can only offer spaces to children who have been registered to their waitlist through OneList.

The centre supervisor can tell you what number your child is on the waitlist but they cannot provide you with any information about who may be ahead of your child on the waitlist. Waitlist information is confidential between the centre supervisor and the family. Things that can cause your waitlist number to change include: a child being enrolled in the centre, the system automatically moving a child to another age category, and families removing their children from the waitlist.

We would love to be able to take every child who is on our waitlist but due to licensing regulations and ratios we are unable to do so. It is very difficult to predict if your child will get into one of our programs.

OneList allows you to apply to multiple locations to increase the likelihood of finding a suitable placement. You can accept another location and remain on our waitlist if you want to transfer to us if a space becomes open based on your priority ranking. Please note that if you accept a position at your 4th choice location, only your 1st, 2nd and 3rd choices will remain in the system.

If you do accept another location and you are happy with the placement, please remove your child from our list.

Family care requirements can change. Should you be offered a position and the timing doesn’t work for your family, you may decline the position but ask to remain on the waitlist. We will simply move on to the next family on the waitlist and offer the space to them. Your application and position on the waitlist would remain.

Please only register your child in the program that is age appropriate for them at the time you require care. The waitlist system will automatically move your child to the next age group based on the child’s age.

For example, if you applied for a toddler space but didn’t receive a call as our toddler program was full, when your child turns 30 months of age the system will transfer them to the preschool waitlist based on the original application date.

Centre waitlists can be very long with hundreds of children on them. It takes a great deal of time and energy to contact families on the list to offer space as we start with the earliest applications and work through them.

Removing your child from the list, simplifies the process for our supervisors and helps other children who do require space the chance of having a space quicker.

We tend to see our largest changes to our enrollment intake in July and September although spaces do become available periodically throughout the year.

We are always glad to do a tour at any of our locations. Some people like to come shortly after they join the OneList waitlist system, others like to wait until they have been offered a space at the centre.

Your child is welcome to come with you. It is nice for both the parent and the child to meet the educators.

According to our license we must have a completed registration package for each child before they attend the centre. When we have our licensing review, one of the items looked at are the children’s files.

It is important that the information in the file is kept up to date. For example if your employer changes or your emergency contact’s phone number changes, please remember to send the supervisor an email so that they can make the update. We need to be sure that we can reach you at all times.

The registration package also gives us more insight into your child. Your child’s educators will also review this information.

We need the completed file before your child starts so that we have time to process it and add your child to attendances, allergy lists, etc.

Parents of children attending child care settings and who are not also in school, are required to fill out the Immunization Information form included in your registration package.

To this form, parents must also staple one or more of the following:

• A copy of the original yellow "Immunization Record", or

• A valid medical exemption as signed by a medical doctor or nurse practitioner or if a medical exemption is provided for only particular vaccines, a copy of the original yellow “Immunization Record” must be provided to show immunization with other vaccines, or

• A Statement of religious or philosophical exemption signed by a commissioner of oaths

Your centre supervisor can assist you to locate the correct form for your situation.

We endeavour to keep children safe from any known allergens and restricted foods. Our centre chefs and supervisors will work with the family to adjust menus to accommodate as many allergies/food restrictions as possible.

Each centre maintains a list of children who have allergies, food restrictions, or other medical concerns at their location. This list will be reviewed with all staff, students and volunteers and is posted in each cooking and serving area; in each play area or play room; and is available and accessible in any other area in which children may be present.

In the case of an anaphylactic allergy, an Anaphylaxis Emergency Plan will be developed with the parent, specific to their child’s needs.