Teens' day care faces cuts
The Surrey Leader
By Kevin Diakiw
Staff Reporter
Feb 02 2007

Desirae Piper, 18, takes her focus off exams Wednesday just long enough to pay an important visit.

She walks down the hall at Guildford Park Secondary School, into an adjoining day care, and hugs her nine-month-old son Zachery, who flashes her his blue-ribbon smile.

Piper is able to juggle being both a mom and a Grade 12 student because of Growing Together day care. Currently helping 30 teen mothers, Growing Together is the only facility of its kind in Surrey.

Without it, Piper isn't sure how she'd manage.

She learned Monday the program faces an annual $18,000 shortfall because of planned provincial funding reductions.

"A lot of girls already have a tough enough time getting here," Piper said. The service, operated by OPTIONS: Services to Communities Society, is funded through several levels of government, but provincial contributions are about to dry up.

Closure and cutting services is not an option, said Tammy Dyer, program manager for the day care.

"This is an important program, and we haven't even started discussions about what we'll do without the $18,000," Dyer said Tuesday, adding traditional revenue streams are limited.

"We can't charge a teenage parent to come to day care, because it's creating a barrier and they won't come."

Without the service, young mothers would simply quit school to be at home with their kids, Dyer said.

The Surrey School Board has no intention of letting the day care to cut services.

Penny Coates, the Surrey School District's early childhood development co-ordinator, said Wednesday the program is too important to young mothers.

"The impact of closing down something like Growing Together ... I assure you, we will find a way to keep that program open," Coates said. "We will find a way, but it shouldn't be OPTIONS by themselves."

OPTIONS has bigger problems, having to slice $900,000 in child care programs such as its referral service....

In addition to the $12 million reduction to the child care operating fund, the province is cutting referral services from $14 million annually to $3 million. But child care advocates say the new system is flawed, in part because a capital program that created 1,500 child care spaces last year is gone. "The $100 a month is not making any spaces," said Pam Best, with the Westcoast Child Resource Centre based in Vancouver. "It's also taxable, so at the end of the day it's going to be $80 or less, I don't know."

Linda Reid, minister of state for child care, told The Leader last week she will continue funding child care subsidy and supported child development, which target low-income families and kids with special needs.

The child care subsidy is available to families with annual incomes under $38,000 which have a child under six years old in a regulated day care. Supported child development is a range of services for children with special needs.

The government is continuing attempts to provide alternatives for services such as referral, she said.

"Will the type of work shift? Absolutely," Reid said. "We will maintain as much of the services and as many of the programs as we can, but I have to allow some flex in the budget for how much is allowed for the other two programs."

Best said the province should continue funding the programs despite the federal cuts in child care.

"To save them what they're cutting, it would have cost (the province) $11 million," Best said, adding the province is enjoying a budget surplus. "They're making priorities, they're just not putting it in child care."

NDP MLA Bruce Ralston said the $2-billion surplus forecast for this year gives the government the power to set its priorities. Child care, he notes, doesn't appear to be one of them.

"It's just a very bad decision," Ralston said, adding he expects the issue to be raised in the legislature.