Day care coping with reduced demand
By Kristi Patton - Penticton Western News
October 14, 2010

The economy and the addition of full-day kindergarten have had effects on at least one day-care centre in Penticton.

“Some of the trends we are starting to see is that we aren’t full anymore. We are a licensed facility for 24 children and we lost 11 children to kindergarten this year, which was expected, but filling up has been slower and we are finding that other child-care facilities are having problems filling up as well. The demand on child care isn’t as great right now,” said Christie Millard, administrator at Penticton Alliance Child Care Centre.

“We are looking at the possibility for that is the economy. People aren’t working so they don’t need childcare as much. When we are getting calls for child care we are getting calls for part-time.”

Millard said two years ago the day care had a long wait list and practically all facilities would have had similar waiting periods. She said this has changed now that kids are going into full-time kindergarten. Right now the day care is less than half full, with 15 open spots for their full preschool program that includes all of the pre-kindergarten readiness skills.

“For many years some centres had enough kids on a wait list to open a whole other centre,” agreed Alliance day care manager Twila Walton.

Millard said they have been expecting a drop in numbers because of the economy and the introduction of full-day kindergarten, so their budget was prepared this September.

“If it keeps trending this way we are going to have to look at other options. I have been fortunate and have budgeted because child care can be so volatile because of the economy,” said Millard….

“It is a bit of complicated situation. Part of the answer is because there was such a large waiting list for day care, so for those parents who were now able to put their children into full-time kindergarten, if any spaces in day cares had been created by that, they were filled by people who were on a waiting list,” said Lischeron.

“If all-day kindergarten had made an impact on the demand for child care spaces my colleagues from across the province, as well as the folks I work with in the region, would all be talking about it and nobody has been talking about it ... there has been no indication that all-day kindergarten has had that kind of an impact.”