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In this edition:
- Child Care Worker and Early Childhood Educator Appreciation Day - Order Form and Materials
- Back to School media articles focus on impacts to child care
- Toronto Coalition for Better Child Care June Emergency Meeting packed with child care operators and board members
- Child Care Stabilization: What can we do to address local issues for child care centres?
- Death of 2 year old in illegal child care in Vaughan focuses attention on unlicensed child care
- Minister admits Ministry of Education has "very little authority with respect to unlicensed daycare"
- New OCBCC Website: Enhanced social networking for child care
- Join the movement: become a member of the Coalition
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Take Action! OCBCC parent survey available for distribution to parents in your community!
Child Care Worker and Early Childhood Educator Appreciation Day - Order Form and Materials
October 30, 2013 - This year's theme is "Let's rethink child care: Together we can make it better".
To order your free buttons and posters, please click here.You can also find graphics and tips on how to celebrate.
Thanks to our sponsors: Canadian Union of Public Employees, UNIFOR, Elementary Teachers of Ontario, United Steelworkers, National Union, Ontario Federation of Labour, Ontario Public Service Employees Union, Ontario Secondary School Teachers Federation, Ontario English Catholic Teachers Association.
Back to School media articles focus on impacts to child care
Negotiating space in our schools, increasing rent charges by school boards; quality issues – push to lower standards; split shifts for RECE’s; lost wage subsidies; lunch and lunch supervision issues; capital costs incurred; rising parent fees for younger children; adequate per diems for subsidized children....
Many media outlets have been covering the stories of child care centres!
We all need to keep child care at the top of the public agenda - that means we need to keep our stories in the news. Thanks to Children's Circle, Main Square Child Care, Messiah Daycare and Sunnyside Garden Daycare for speaking up.
To see a list of media stories on impacts to child care, please click here.
Some of the examples of recent stories include:
Riverdale-area daycare told to stop accepting full-day kindergarteners, Globe and Mail. To read the article, please click here.
All-day kindergarten increasing costs for daycare, Global TV. To watch the video, please click here.
School-based daycare squeezed by full-day kindergarten, Toronto Star. To read the article, please click here.
Did you miss Trevor Finn's commentary "We earn more than $100,000 a year. Why can't we afford daycare?" in the Globe and Mail? Sad but true, to read the article, please click here.
Toronto Coalition for Better Child Care June Emergency Meeting packed with child care operators and board members
September marks the 4th of a 5 year implementation timetable for full-day kindergarten.
The meeting heard many concerns about impacts on child care:
Inadequate capital funding for extended day programs, high fees, loss of lunch programs, child care centres paying capital funding to enable school rooms to be licensed, lunchtime supervision, split shifts and lower wage scales for staff, lack of collaboration from school systems, lack of leadership from school boards and the province.
For more information about the issues raised facing Toronto child care programs, please click here.
Child Care Stabilization: What can we do to address local issues for child care centres?
In June, the Toronto Coalition for Better Child Care had an emergency meeting to learn from the experiences of child care centres that have been through the transition to full-day kindergarten.
Child care is funded provincially, but delivered by municipal / regional governments or social service administration boards. In Toronto, the committee of elected leaders that is in charge of delivering child care services is the Community Development and Recreation Committee of Toronto City Council. Children's services staff report on the status of child care at every meeting.
The June 2013 meeting had nine deputations on problems and solutions facing child care centres. The end result was 9 directives to children's services staff to address concerns of child care centres. To see the motions, please click here. Some of the motions included:
- That Toronto children's services staff negotiate a master lease with the Toronto District School Board and Toronto Catholic board to cover all child care centres in school and ensure centres are treated fairly in rental charges.
- That Toronto children's services staff report on the feasibility and impacts of keeping wage subsidy payments available for child care centres that are re-configuring services for younger children until such time as the new funding model is implemented.
- City Council request the General Manager, Children's Services to identify the "hot spots" in all Ward(s) where implementation of Full-Day Kindergarten/Full-Day Learning is proving difficult for working families requiring care, and continue to work with schools and child care centres to develop an appropriate neighborhood multi-year transition plan for ongoing quality before and aftercare, and report to the Community Development and Recreation Committee, specifically with a review of options for Children's Circle's expansion to serve infants.
- City Council request the Ministry of Education and the Boards of Education to work together with the City to ensure that the level of funding for the provision of child care services and that the transition schedule be sensitive to the needs of service providers.
If you can identify problems in your community and you have ideas for solutions, your community can also go to the committee that oversees child care programs. We can help.
Suggestions:
- Find out how to register to make a deputation to the committee, go as a group
- Identify solutions, work in advance with decision-makers to have a list of motions ready to go
- Make sure every Councillor on the committee gets a few calls in advance from parents who are constituents in the ward. The personal touch will mean a lot.
For help in getting organized in your community, contact Andrea Calver at 1-800-594-7514 x 4 or [email protected]
Death of 2 year old in illegal child care in Vaughan focuses attention on unlicensed child care
In July, we heard about the shocking death a 2 year old girl in Vaughan - found in an illegal child care operation with 27 other children.
The 2 year old who died has been identified as Eva Ravikovich – she was a beautiful girl, only child and the statement by her parents is heartbreaking.
The Ontario Government is under significant pressure to expand our effective system of licensed home child care to ensure that every provider providing child care as a business must be affiliated with a licensed agency.
Thank you to Ontario's effective oversight bodies as Ontario’s Information and Privacy Commissioner wrote a remarkable letter and the Ombudsman's office launched an investigation of how the Ministry of Education handles complaints.
If you missed CBC Marketplace’s expose of unlicensed child care which aired in February 2013, you should watch it.
You can find it at: http://www.cbc.ca/marketplace/episodes/2012-2013/whos-watching-the-kids
We have two media files which we are updating daily, you can find them at: http://www.childcareontario.org/2013_unlicensed_child_care
- News Reports from Vaughan unlicensed child care
- Unlicensed Child Care Incidents and Articles
If you know someone who has any concern about an unlicensed home child care – report it!
Complaints are the only protection for children. If you have a newsletter or website, add the following blurb:
Complaints regarding unlicensed child care:
Have you seen an unlicensed provider with more than 5 children? It’s illegal and unsafe. Ontario has a complaints-based system for unlicensed child care.
The only protection for children is a complaint so if you see something that isn’t right – report it.
To complain, please find the Ministry of Education office in your area: http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/childcare/offices.html
Minister admits Ministry of Education has "very little authority with respect to unlicensed daycare"
Liz Sandals, Ontario's Minister of Education admitted that the Ministry of Education "has very little authority with respect to unlicensed daycare".
In response to a question by NDP MPP Monique Taylor, the Minister said it was "problematic" that the Ministry was forced to seek an injunction to prevent the Vaughan home child care from re-opening.
To read the question in the house, please click here.
The OCBCC released public health reports from the Vaughan illegal child care operation showing listeria in three food products, dirty diapers and garbage in the kitchen, out of date and fermented foods and food and cleaning supplies stored together under the sink.
Despite 5 complaints, the Ministry only investigated the home child care once. Documents showed that Ministry of Education inspectors were denied entry to the home conditional on a 20 minute wait. They found 7 children and wrote the operators a letter.
After Eva's death in July, Ministry of Education staff suspected that that the owners may have moved children through the backyard to a second home.
For media coverage, or to read the documents released by York Public Health, please click here.
New OCBCC Website: Enhanced social networking for child care
The OCBCC has a new website. It's not perfect yet, but we are so excited to be on the cutting edge of new website technology.
You are able to sign in using facebook, twitter or your email. A practical benefit is that the website will remember you - no more typing in your mailing address for CCWAD materials next year!
If you want to change the materials you can do that, otherwise you can just click send!
Our new communications capabilities will really help with our upcoming fall campaigns and education and advocacy work for the 2014 municipal and school board elections.
Join the movement: Become a member of the Coalition
We can tell from our recent successes in the provincial budget that advocacy works, and that when we come together as a sector we can make a difference.
It is more important than ever that we work together to protect our child care system. Membership in our coalition helps you join with us and our other members, strengthening our collective voice toward the goal of establishing a high quality, affordable, publicly funded, non-profit and regulated child care system.
The coalition is funded by member fees and this means we need your membership support more than ever.
What’s in it for you? Benefits of membership include:
- Child care insider e-updates about once a month or whenever there’s breaking news about child care in Ontario
- Member rates on publication
- Organizational members are eligible for comprehensive insurance & benefits packages tailored specifically for child care programs
- Automatic membership with the Child Care Advocacy Association of Canada
- Opportunity to join one of our committees and get involved in child care campaigns
- Becoming part of the collective voice standing up for child care here in Ontario
Not sure if you’re a member? Want to know more? Get in touch! Send Alisha an e-mail.
To download the membership form or pay on-line, click here.
Take Action! OCBCC parent survey available for distribution to parents in your community!
The OCBCC is planning a major new campaign for affordable child care. We need the personal stories of parents. Please add a blurb about our survey to your next newsletter or your website.
Parent Survey on Child Care Options in Ontario
The Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care is conducting a parent survey about child care options.
Licensed child care in Ontario costs upwards of $40-60 per day, per child.
There are only licensed spaces for 1 in 5 of Ontario’s children.
In many areas, subsidy wait lists are incredibly long.
It doesn’t have to be this way. We know that child care is good for children, families, and our economy.
In Quebec, child care fees are just $7/day and in Manitoba they are no more than $20/day.
The future of child care will depend on a movement of parents sharing their experiences.
Get involved. Take the survey online at www.childcareontario.org/survey and follow the action on twitter @ChildCareON.
The results of the survey will put pressure on decision-makers for real change and affordable child care.
Spread the word, every story counts!
You can do the OCBCC Parent Survey! - click here.
About the OCBCC
The OCBCC is committed to bringing about an Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) system that is not-for-profit and publicly funded, universally accessible, and high quality.
Join today! Click here for the membership form.
Follow us on Twitter: @ChildCareON or http://twitter.com/ChildCareON
You are receiving this e-mail from the Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care because you are a member of the coalition, opted in on our website, signed up for updates at a local meeting, or have been in communication with us regarding child care issues.
Our mailing address is:
Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care
Copyright (C) 2013 Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care All rights reserved.