Infant child-care crisis slams area
Trail Daily Times
19 Sep 2006
Byline: Kate Skye
EXCERPT

Lynn Proulx and Kathy Miller are having a tough time telling parents that the infant-toddler spaces in their group licensed child-care programs are full.

"We are full and have a waitlist of 29 people in our baby room," said Lynn Proulx, manager of Sunshine Children's Centre in Trail. "That means a two-and-a-half year waitlist. So by the time these children have a space, they will be too old for the infant- toddler program."

But the preschool-aged program for three-to-five-year olds is also full to capacity and has a waitlist of 21 children. So, many of the infants on the waitlist this year, will be in kindergarten before they get a space in Trail's only group licensed centre.

"I have never heard the desperation in parents' voices as I'm hearing right now," Proulx said.

Rossland's Golden Bear child-care program is also full to capacity, said manager Kathy Miller.

"We are serving 30 families with 36 spaces, which are all full with waitlists," she said.

This summer staff at Golden Bear, along with parent volunteers, gave up part of their summer holidays to expand the infant-toddler program to eight spaces from four.

"We have doubled our spaces for infants and we still have a waitlist of 10," she said. "I would say there is a crisis in child care in our community. I feel terrible telling parents we are full."

The shortage of licensed group spaces is not new but it seems more intense with the growth in the area, Miller said.

Proulx agreed.

"I'm getting between two and four calls a day from parents wanting child care," she said. "I've been working in this field for 25 years and it has never been this bad."

Sue McIntosh at the Child Care Resource and Referral program in Trail is also concerned about the lack of spaces available to parents.

"Family day-care centres are also pretty booked up," she said. "We are getting tons of calls from parents who can't find spaces and we are frantically trying to recruit family caregivers but things seem to be critical right now."

McIntosh runs a family drop-in program in Fruitvale and said she is encouraged to see how many "new young families have moved into the area."

A recent announcement from the subsidy branch at the Ministry for Children and Families provides some relief to parents that the current child-care subsidy rates will stay in place, but centre administrators are anxious about what lies ahead. ...

But because the federal Conservatives cancelled the early learning and child-care agreement funding, which brought $445 million in federal dollars into the province, child-care providers are anxious about how that will affect their centres' operating budgets.

"The announcement says, 'The province will endeavour to maintain other child-care services during the course of the current school year,'" Proulx said. "But what exactly does that mean?"

Operating grants from the province are used to help group licensed centres top up a number of programs including staff wages, she said.

"And these are not high wages."

Group centres are also having a tough time attracting qualified early-childhood trained staff since Selkirk College shut the program down a few years ago, Miller added.

"We are having a horrible time getting trained staff," she said. "We are having to ask for letters of permission from licensing so that people can work in the centre."

"They have partially reinstated the early childhood program at Selkirk," Proulx explained, "but there are only four or five graduates a year and they often go out of province to work."

Miller said parents are being given a false sense of security that there will be more money for child care when actually there is less.

"What is happening right now doesn't make any sense," she said.

And without quality child-care spaces available, some parents are not returning to the workforce when they want to, Proulx said.

"Why shouldn't our community support women and parents who want to go back to school or work? Our community is in a huge phase right now of building and expanding. Why can't businesses like Teck Cominco, or the hospital offer on-site child care? Any businesses that has indoor space and a little green space could open an infant toddler centre.

"What can we do as a community to help parents who are in this crisis situation?"