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Alberta Children's Services is seeking public feedback on recent legislation introduced to update and improve existing regulations for child care.
The provincial department has been conducting public meetings and an online survey for stakeholders on the Child Care Licensing Act introduced in the Legislature earlier this spring.
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Close to 40 professional child-care workers and operators from more than a dozen child-care facilities across the Peace Country attended the session held Monday in Grande Prairie. It provided detailed information on changes to the act for issuing licences, and new standards on staffing qualifications, health and safety, staff/child ratios, nutrition, and facilities.
Among the most important changes included certifying the child-care program managers who have a two-year college diploma in child development and two years of work experience, as well as raising the qualifications for child development workers by certifying those with one- or two-year child development diplomas.
Child development assistants would be required to complete a provincially recognized child-care course.
Some of the child-care operators who attended the consultation applauded the move to certify child-care workers.
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However, more logistical issues surrounding how to improve health and safety, nutrition, and facilities were met with some criticism. While many agreed they are good standards for future child- care facilities, others representing established child-care programs felt some of the standards were unrealistic.
Alex Brochu, instructor for the Smoky River Play School, said one example of an unrealistic safety standard is requiring child development workers to carry cellphones at all times whenever they are taking children outside of the facility.
She agreed it was good idea but said there was little information on whether the province would provide funding for centres to purchase cellphone packages.
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Some criticized the new standards did not address the limited resources of rural child-care programs, even though there was a leniency clause that established programs can have a grace period of five years to meet new provincial standards.
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Yet many attending the meeting agreed the new Child Care Licensing Act was at least on the right track in upgrading and improving child-care standards in the province
- reprinted from Grande Prairie Daily Herald-Tribune