With space at less than 50 per cent of what is needed, child care in the Cowichan Valley is in dire straits and facing a future that looks even worse, according to a new report by Social Planning Cowichan.

"The system is beginning to crumble underneath our feet," said Cindy Lise, of Success By Six, one of the groups that assisted in putting the report together…

Numbers revealed by the report are "very, very grim," said Lise.

Of the 4,862 children under the age of 12 in the Cowichan Valley who need child care, only 50 per cent can be accommodated by the current licensed facilities.

The situation for infants is worse.

For the 1,047 children under the age of three who need care there are only 120 licensed spaces, just 11 per cent of what is needed.

"It's an alarming situation that is worsening due to the current labour shortage and increasing cost of housing," said Candace Spilsbury, Chair of Social Planning Cowichan.

Families need two incomes to afford a home, she said, so they are being forced by the lack of licenced spaces to look at unregulated care that can be of uneven quality.

"We are not faring very well at all," Lise said. "We have amazing programs, we have amazing staff, but what we are lacking is spaces and staff to support those spaces.

"If you have an infant born right now and are planning on going back to work, it is extremely difficult to find child care... We do not have the spaces for our infants and toddlers."

Lise said she hopes the Social Planning Cowichan document will help lobby the provincial and federal governments to address the issue with programs and funding.

The 56-page report identifies three major causes for the current crisis: lack of child care spaces, lack of funding for child care services and staff recruitment and retention woes.

Wages for child care workers "are abysmal," Lise said.

This entire field is consequently unable to recruit and retain qualified workers.

The lack of staff has come to the point that the Kaatza Child care Centre in Lake Cowichan had to close its doors one day last week and send all of the children home, simply because one worker called in sick.

Wendy Fetchko runs the Kaatza Centre.

"There's not enough qualified staff and, when a staff member is sick, we have no one to call in," she said. "The government needs to step in and fund child care and early learning programs similar to the school districts. Then we wouldn't have to worry about people not wanting to come into the field."

The centre has been full since June, with 28 children affected the day they had to call parents to come and pick up their kids.

Fetchko has just six staff members and says she needs seven to keep the doors open.

They've spent a lot of money on advertising positions, she said, but there just are not the qualified people willing to work for the wages, even though Kaatza offers one of the highest wages in the Valley at about $16 per hour.

The shortage of staff has meant that her employees have been working overtime for months to try to fill in the gaps, but that starts to mean people get sick, Fetchko said, and they're not even into cold and flu season yet.

"It's horrendous," said Lise, and things will only get worse.

With recent multi-million dollar cuts made by the provincial government, the cracks in the system are widening and spreading, she said, and those working in it are feeling helpless to do anything to stop the deterioration.

"That's our reality right now in our community," Lise said. "We have a lot of work to do as a society to place value on our children, to place value on our parents, and then the educators who look after those children when the parents work. Until we can do that, we will continue to struggle."