Closures will affect child care
Chilliwack Times
January 30, 2007
Letters -- By: Kathy Antonio

Editor:

I am writing to express my great disappointment about the Child Care Resource and Referral offices being shut down in 2008 across the province. The funding cuts resulting in these closures will negatively impact my licensed child care, the daycare centres; small licence not required child care providers and the families in our community of Chilliwack.

Some of the ways these cuts will directly affect our child care community are:

Licence Not Required Family Child Care providers registered with the CCRR will no longer receive parent referrals, training, home visits, support and access to a toy lending library. The loss of the CCRR in our community means that someone that has two children full time is grossing, on average, $15,000 a year in income, will now have to find dollars to advertise, buy toys instead of borrow them and most likely stop upgrading their skills as a child care provider. Let's face it $15,000 a year does not allow someone to go to school and pay for courses.

In order to provide quality child care, providers must have access to training workshops and networking opportunities that are free, because we don't earn enough to pay for these programs.

Licensed Family Child Care providers registered with the CCRR will also lose out on the referral programs, training (which we are required to take a certain number of courses in order to maintain our licence), home visits, support and access to the toy lending library.

The home visits are a very important aspect that will be missed. It is one of the checks and balances that parents have to feel better about ensuring their daycare provider is being looked in on. Also, although I love what I do, this industry is very isolating and it is comforting to know there are people out there, the CCRR staff and licensing, that will pop by to ensure you and the children you care for are doing well and provide suggestions for improvement and support.

A single parent will have no one to turn to for support and assistance in gaining subsidy for child care. There will be no referral services for families seeking child care. How are families going to find daycare providers if there is no longer a referral program? One mother I spoke to said, "It's hard enough now to find quality child care, what are we suppose to do if there is no CCRR?"

Providing care for children is an extremely rewarding career choice. I love what I do. Working with children is a joy unto itself, but the financial rewards are pretty much non-existent.

In order to continue providing quality child care I am facing the additional costs to go to school to upgrade my skills and maintain my licence. I will have to find the dollars to advertise and buy toys that I was able to borrow for free. That means cutting services to my families or increasing my fees. I care for five families not just for the children but for the whole family. I work from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. by myself and make $1.87 per hour per child before expenses. I can not afford to be without the services provided by our CCRR. I am urging the government to show it's commitment to the children of this province and restore the funding to the CCRRs.