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No vacancy. A term usually reserved for the hospitality industry is spilling into the day-to-day vocabulary of child-care workers citywide.
As little ones are being turned away from accredited day homes, they are placed onto four-year waiting lists, and parents are forced to seek alternative solutions: either private day care or family members.
The federal government's solution to child care comes in the form of a cheque in the mailbox. But costs are escalating, in large part due to the collapse of federal support that once helped keep child care affordable.
How bad is the situation now?
Children's Choice Child Development Co-operative on Dunn Drive has a waiting list 80 names long.
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Prince Albert, like many cities in Canada, needs more space for licensed day cares or at least the option of having a facility staffed by trained child-development workers.
On top of the physical space, government needs to ante up and raise wages for early childhood educators to make this important profession more financially attractive.
Parents must brace for the effects of the failed system as they try to find good care.
Good child care should not hinge on chance or be pinned to the notions of $100 per month. It should be afforded by an efficient government willing to represent the families of this city, this province, and this country.
- reprinted from the Prince Albert Daily Herald