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Affordable Childcare – Who will pay the price?
Affordable Childcare is a current hot topic to discuss as it circulates through federal and provincial government agendas. So, let’s take a closer look at what this means for us as the caregivers and you, the families that require care.
The Governments are throwing around the term “$10 a day childcare”. Did you know it in fact costs approximately $100-$150 a day to care for a child? And that is determined by location when factoring in rental costs in the lower mainland not to mention staff wages – Early Childhood Educators deserve to earn a living wage too! At Creative Kids, we offer our staffing team:
- Competitive wages
- Health Benefits
- Pension Plan
- Paid vacation after 90 days
- Free Workshops and Professional Development
- Bonus time for personal days
- Heavily discounted childcare for staff
- School Funding to attain ECE and IT
We have dedicated staff to ensure we run our facilities optimally with meeting: staffing needs; program supplies; licensing requirements; quality programming; dedicated parent liaison; maintenance of facilities. Not to forget dedicated administration to make sure we have government funding to lower our fees to parents and to facilitate subsidy and funding in order to pay our staff higher wages…….This all doesn’t come at $10 a day! Where will the remaining $90-$140+ dollars a day per child come from in order, to continue to provide high quality care for your children?
There seems to be a plan in place to encompass childcare under the ministry of education within the next few years. It may sound reasonable at first thought but let’s consider where these childcare spaces will go if companies like Creative Kids are not able to operate under the regulations and legislature that will be mandated. The current education administration do not consider working parents now – think about all the Pro-D Days and Early Dismissals that are in place. What happens when the Ministry of Education takes over childcare – will they consider the working parents then? There are so many questions that are left unanswered in how they plan to do this and how it will not only affect us as the care provider but also the families in their choice of quality care for their children.
Although only paying $10/day for childcare sounds ideal, we are asking you to take a closer look at what that actually means. What will you get in return for the cost of 2 coffees per day? We believe in accessible, affordable and quality childcare too and would like the opportunity to continue what we have built and continue to work on since our inception in 1996.
Creative Kids is at the forefront of the private childcare sector here in the Lower Mainland. We are extremely proud of the level of care that we strive each day to provide at all 8 of our locations. Our goal is to always stay true to our core values: Quality; Consistency; Connection.
I have attached some articles that are worth the few minutes to read to begin to understand the scope of this dilemma we are all facing in the coming years – Affordable Childcare! Let’s start the conversation!
