Forum tackles day care crisis
By STACIE SNOW
Vernon Morning Star
May 18 2007

Community members, local politicians, RCMP officers, day care workers and many others were given an opportunity to speak out about the Vernon child care crisis at the Community Action Forum at the Schubert Centre Tuesday....

"The most important aspect is creating a plan for attracting and retaining quality child-care providers with decent wages," said Kent Stratbiski, a child care provider for the Highlands Retirement Residence in Kelowna. "You have to make it more rewarding."

Brittany Block, a bachelor of education student at Okanagan College, agreed. She said that people would be willing to lend their time to take care of children if home-based day cares were easier to run.

"More people would be willing to contribute if the bylaws were reworked. It is just not affordable or feasible for people to wait that long when they are just trying to help out the community."

Anne Zirnheld, the executive director of the Children's Circle Childcare Society in Kamloops and a representative for the Coalition of Child Care Advocates of British Columbia (CCCABC), said that these grassroots forums are a very important step towards a solution.

"Events like this are essential," she said. "It brings people together and ensures that they are all communicating and pulling in the same direction."

Darlene Wolsey, the program manager of Supported Child Development at the North Okanagan Neurological Association Child Development Centre, said that the time for discussion is over.

"We need to come up with some actions," said Wolsey. "There are so many ideas and no one does anything about it."

Wolsey added that all people in the community need to have a vested interest in the issue in order to do anything about it.

"More people need to realize what a burning issue it is and see how it affects the entire community."

She pointed out the lack of affordable and accessible child care doesn't only affect parents and children, it also has a significant impact on health care, education, politics, the economy and other facets of everyone's life.

According to the CCCABC, 44 per cent of B.C. businesses face labour shortages that restrict their ability to meet demand and 15 per cent of people looking for a job are unable to work because of the lack of accessible day care.

All six discussion groups at the forum came up with detailed action plans to help solve the child care crisis. Some of these steps include determining the exact child care needs of the community; forming groups to inform the public of the issue and create a vested interest; researching funding options including federal, provincial, community and business; and creating incentives for organizations to rent their facilities out to day cares.

All of the brainstorming ideas and solutions will be compiled by Jill Hedland of Community Futures Development Corp. and brought to the attention of local groups that were identified as part of the solution.

These groups include the Social Planning Council, the Early Childhood Development Coalition and the People Place.