Turnhout (Brussels Morning Newspaper) – Turnhout residents now have access to a daycare facility on the ground floor of the De Wending Residential Care Centre. The location fits perfectly well, according to Care Group Orion, which manages both the daycare centre and residential care centre.
A new daycare facility named De Kleine Wending now serves Turnhout‘s population by establishing itself on the ground floor of WZC De Wending, which provides residential care for the elderly. The facility operates under Zorggroep Orion management, which took full control of Turnhout daycare centres. However, it uses elderly care and childcare resources together through shared programs and volunteer opportunities.
The centre provides 36 subsidised spots (established from a maximum of 54 spots) for children between the ages of zero and three through fee structures dependent on household earnings. The initiative supports generation mixing by having residents from the care centre donate their time for creative tasks and meal help.
A daycare centre in a residential care centre is also efficient.
“For example, the kitchen can be used by both facilities,”
says Alderman Kelly Verheyen (Vooruit).
This also offers opportunities for the staff.
“Staff who would like to work with a different target group can change in the long term. The volunteers who currently work for ‘De Wending’ can also be deployed at ‘De Kleine Wending'”.
The residents of the residential care centre can also volunteer to help in the daycare centre.
“This involves helping with creative activities or cutting fruit,”
says Verheyen.
“There is even a waiting list now because so many residents want to help.”
Resident Jacqueline Wauters is also enthusiastic.
“Children liven things up. That’s fun. I’m already looking forward to watching the children play outside during the summer.”
Although Jacqueline probably won’t help.
“I’m 90 now, I’m too old for that. I’d rather leave that to the younger residents,”
she laughs.
What Is the historical context of Zorggroep Orion in Turnhout?
Zorggroep Orion launched in 2016 as a split from OCMW Turnhout and now controls De Wending and De Vliet residential care centres and assistive housing units with three daycare centres in Turnhout.
The organisation operates with over 220 staff members and 300 volunteers and manages its facilities from multiple sites in Albert Van Dyckstraat and Schorvoortstraat in 2024.
The combination of childcare facilities with elderly care centres demonstrates Turnhout’s preventive approach toward social isolation, which manifests through community-based initiatives such as the Babbelbus mobile space and link worker programs for seniors who visited 160 homes in their initial year.
The forthcoming daycare facility De Kleine Wending, will open in WZC De Wending in 2025, thus increasing Orion’s total daycare locations to 36 at Bouwschen Pad Fabriekstraat and Druivenstraat.
The expansion supports Orion’s goal of delivering “integrale qualitative zorg” (integrated quality care) through resource sharing and intergenerational partnership. Turnhout daycare centres have come under complete Orion management in recent years, indicating its key position in managing the local childcare infrastructure, even though no specific quantification of citywide shortages exists.
