Child-care cuts will ripple down
Trail Daily Times
31 Jan 2007
Opinion -- By: Sue McIntosh, CCRR coordinator

I am writing this letter in response to B.C. Minister of State for Childcare Linda Reid's letter in the Trail Daily Times on Jan. 16 (B.C. Still Cares About Kids: Minister).

Does B.C. care about our kids? Minister Reid states that the provincial government's goal is to "create a quality, flexible child-care system that works for B.C. families, that supports our most vulnerable children and is sustainable over the long term."

We need to ask her how she plans to do this when she is reducing operating funding to licensed child-care facilities and closing all the hugely popular Childcare Resource and Referral programs (CCRRs) across the province. Reducing operating funding will force child-care facilities to either raise their parent fees or to close their programs, thus creating more vulnerable children and families. She states that childcare fees can be offset by the $100 per child monthly Universal Child Care Benefit, which is considered a taxable income and only goes to families with children age six and under. Most parents are already using that to offset their fees.

The closure of all 45 CCRR programs across the province, slated for Oct. 1, is devastating news to child-care workers and families who depend on these services. There will be NO child-care referrals for parents looking for child care.

For child-care providers there will be NO training, monitoring, accountability, administrative support, assistance in managing the business or dealing with difficult child-care issues. There will also be NO criminal record checks, reference checks, medical release, first aid training or support for this important group of workers.

For parents, there will be NO support or assistance filling out the extensive child-care subsidy applications. There will be NO toy and resource lending library including affordable art supplies, NO parent education, NO CCRR play groups or mom, dad and me programs. There will also be a huge LOSS of staff expertise in the child-care field and a loss of input from this staff to early childhood community development.

These losses will reduce the quality of care children are receiving, thus creating more vulnerable children and families. CCRRs are valuable programs and some have been in operation for 20 years. The Trail-Castlegar program has been in this community for 16 years and has helped numerous people with referrals for parents, assistance with subsidy applications, toy and resource lending, and the business aspects of providing child care. We have offered numerous educational opportunities to parents, child-care providers and the community, and the list of valuable services goes on.

The provincial CCRR's year-end report states that in the 2005/06 fiscal year, 32,657 parents received referrals to local child-care services; 3,727 parents attended training opportunities; 48,566 parents borrowed or were supplied with resources and 48,222 parents received consultations.

Also in this year, 16,506 care providers attended training opportunities, 105,129 borrowed toys and resources, 208,693 received consultations and 599 previously unmonitored caregivers were registered with the CCRRs. These licence-not-required caregivers were screened, supported and are now eligible for an enhanced child-care subsidy rate.

So let's ask ourselves . . . does this affect the quality of care children are receiving? You bet it does! Child-care providers are the foundation of our communities. Huge amounts of research has been done on the value of early childhood programs for school readiness, some by the very government who is now choosing to decimate these programs.

Less than a year ago, the provincial government put millions of our tax dollars into enhancing the CCRR services province wide. Funds were invested in communities for increased staffing; more accessible, storefront, barrier-free locations; increases to lending library inventories; an expensive province wide logo development and advertising campaign, and program vans with the new logo to promote most programs. And the list goes on. Now they have put aside millions of your tax dollars to buy out leases, offer staff severance and close down these valuable programs.

This is a dishonour to our parents, our care providers, our children and to our communities. Please stand up for what you believe in. It takes a whole community to raise a child. We need to work together to build a strong and healthy future for our most precious, our future leaders, and this doesn't happen by destroying services.