Changes concern child care providers
Penticton Western News
Feb 24 2006

When the Conservative government follows through on its plan to phase out child care transfer funding it will make a difficult local situation even worse, says Kim Lyster, executive director of the Penticton and District Community Resources Society...

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Cutting that funding will force local parents back into making difficult decisions about the quality of care their child receives, said Lyster.

"A lot of this money was going to go to expanding capacity and building service and with the chopping, I don't know if anything is going to be sustainable," said Lyster.

Cutting the new program will make child care less accessible both in terms of cost and availability, she said.

Child care costs on average about $30 a day at a licensed child care facility, depending on the parents' income, with transportation and snacks costing extra, said Marisa Munday, senior consultant with the child care resource and referral program offered by PDCRS. Depending on the kind of care and the income level of the parents, most of those costs are now covered by federal subsidies, she said.

If those subsidies are replaced by the $1,200 a year child care allowance, it will "significantly jeopardize" parents' ability to pay, said Lyster.

"The thing that is most alarming about Mr. Harper's agenda of offering families $100 a month is that it doesn't equal, in any way, shape or form, the real cost of child care," she said.

Availability is the other issue facing parents, she said. Lack of funding has meant a reduction in the number of child care providers and child care spaces in the South Okanagan. Today there are about 108 providers, the majority are family or licence-not-required facilities.

The after-school program offered by PDCRS has a three-year waiting list and the society has started a drive to recruit more caregivers to go through the necessary training to become a registered child care provider, said Munday.

"We have a huge lists of people (with) nowhere to go," she said.

Inadequate funding has created an "underground economy" of private caregivers who are unlicensed, unregistered and unmonitored.

A Conservative Party press release says the change "will let parents choose the child care option that best suits their family's needs."

But reduced funding will restrict parents' flexibility and force them into difficult choices, said Lyster.

For some children, this will mean coming home to an empty house without supervision. Others will have to turn to extended family members or a caregiver who is "relatively competent and doesn't charge them an arm and a leg," said Munday.

"I think families are making the kinds of decisions that no parents should have to make in terms of compromising the quality of care for their children," she said. "It's very, very frightening for parents to go out there and kind of beat the bushes looking for care providers and they're doing it all on their own." ...