The child care capacity challenge: The search is on for solutions to meet the need for more child care spaces
U Vic - The Ring
July 2009
By Robie Liscomb

For the past several years, UVic students, faculty and staff have faced increasing difficulty finding suitable child care spaces on or off campus. “The quality of care provided by UVic Child Care Services is stellar,” says Grace Wong Sneddon, interim associate director of Student and Ancillary Services. But the demand for spaces in UVic’s child care centres greatly exceeds the supply.

However, a constellation of recent initiatives and developments at UVic is presenting a valuable opportunity to address the problem.

“The university understands the need for increased access to quality child care,” says UVic Vice-President Finance and Operations Gayle Gorrill. “We have a shared interest in this with faculty, student and staff parents and are making efforts to find long-term, sustainable solutions to address the need for additional high-quality child care options.”

Currently, Child Care Services provides spaces for 88 children: 10 infants (with a waiting list of 47), 28 toddler spaces (with 122 on the wait list), 25 pre-schoolers (with 69 waiting), and 25 kindergarten age children (with 31 waitlisted). There are also 50 spaces in the out-of-school care program (with 19 on the wait list). Wait times for spaces range from several months to two or more years.

“There has always been a waiting list for UVic child care,” explains Dr. Lynne Marks (history), “but in the last two years, things have become worse, in part because of developments beyond UVic.” Marks has long been involved in the child care issue, most recently as chair of the UVic Academic Women’s Caucus and co-chair of the newly established UVic Child Care Action Group. She is also a member of the UVic Child Care Parent Advisory Board.

Child care spaces are very tight off-campus as well, leading to similarly lengthy waiting lists. Marks cites the cancellation of the federal childcare policy and the failure of provincial child care subsidies to keep pace with costs as playing a major role in the reduction of available and affordable child care spaces locally.

Full Article is at: http://ring.uvic.ca/09jul10/child-care.html