Whistler Children’s Centre executive director Kari Gaudet wants people to be upset by a decision to close two programs for the youngest children at the Spring Creek day care. She wants parents to learn the reasons why, and for people to take the issue to their elected officials.
“I don’t know if there’s a made-in-Whistler solution to it,” she said. “I think the Whistler solution is to work together as a community, to rally the government. I think the changes have to come at the provincial or federal level.”
As of Nov. 28, Spring Creek will no longer offer its Daisies program for children aged three months to 18 months, and the Blueberries program for children aged 18 months to 36 months. The reason is staffing — there are just not enough staff with B.C.-approved Infant Toddler (IT) certifications or comparable certifications from other provinces for the centre to comply with government regulations.
“I’ve spoken to so many day care centres in the last little while, through the corridor, in the Lower Mainland, and across B.C, and everyone says that staffing is their largest problem right now and more specifically IT certifications. I told them the problems with our centre, and they said we’re probably just the first of many (to cut programs).”
According to Gaudet, the Spring Creek centre was up for its annual licencing inspection, and knew they were not in compliance with provincial requirements. Gaudet met with the inspector and told her the situation.
“It was clear to her that we were in a desperate time and that we were doing the best we could while not adhering to the licencing regulations,” said Gaudet. She was able to get a temporary exemption for two teachers at the Nesters facility because the inspector decided their Australian and Ontario IT certificates were comparable or better than the B.C. standard. However, the staff at Spring Creek did not qualify as they were still in training and did not have transferable qualifications.
Each teacher was able to look after up to eight children per day for a total of 16 lost day care spots. Since different families use the service on different days, Gaudet says 26 families will be directly affected by the closure of the programs. Some of those parents joined the waitlist to get into the Nesters facility, but with 96 families on the waitlist there is little chance they will get in.
Gaudet says they are optimistic about their chances of finding new staff with the appropriate certifications by Nov. 28, but she says they are also being realistic.
“We’ve had struggles with this in the past, and with everything else that’s working against us, like limited housing availability and the cost of living in Whistler.” Gaudet says Canada needs a universal childcare plan to supplement staff wages, which she says are low in comparison to other jobs in Whistler. As well, she says there is a burnout rate of approximately three years for early childhood educators.
“It’s a high-paced, stressful environment and the staff are being paid minimally. We could charge more, but fees are already maxed out for most families… we need a subsidy to pay our teachers what they deserve to be paid, and some expedited way to recognize teaching certifications from other provinces.”
One of the parents scrambling to find childcare is Joan Paterson, who lives in nearby Bear Ridge. One of the options she is exploring is to band together with other parents in the neighbourhood and hire a nanny, but she prefers the Spring Creek Day Care.
“The person we hire won’t be as qualified as the people we have in the day care, which our children love, and there are no other real options in Whistler,” she said.
“I know of two girls with IT training from Japan, but we don’t recognize them. Our children love them dearly, but (B.C.) is not letting them in. I know this issue is not just with us, it’s across the province. That’s why our MLA has to be involved. They have to recognize that early childhood educators are a dying breed, people don’t go to school anymore to become educators because the job is so challenging and the pay is so low.”
Paterson would also like to see more funding for day care programs and their staff, as well as for the federal government to restore funding to child care that was cut by in lieu of $100 per month credits.
“If we had funding, we could give staff more money and keep people here, even entice people to come here,” she said.
A $533 million cut at the federal level to B.C. childcare resulted in cuts of $3.76 per day for children in the infant programs and $2 per day for children aged 3 to 5 in early 2007. When it was announced, 100 families joined a protest walk in Whistler in solidarity with the Whistler Children’s Centre and day cares across the province.
Gaudet says that funding cut isn’t responsible for the lost programs at Spring Creek as staffing was already an issue. However, she said it’s part of the crisis. “It’s not totally associated with the budget cuts, but it’s another notch against child care.”
