B.C. childcare centre staffing challenges leave parents scrambling

Some Port Moody parents were left scrambling after they say their childcare centre booted their kids because of staffing issues.

Jeffrey O’Neill says he is still in shock after he says the childcare centre his two kids have been going to suddenly told him on Tuesday they would no longer care for one of them after Thursday, leaving him scrambling for a new place.

“We’re still really upset and still trying to process what actually happened,” O’Neill told CityNews.

“They require us to give written, one month’s notice [to leave], and we got a phone call at seven o’clock at night that in less than two days … we will not have full-time care anymore.”

The Port Moody man says the childcare centre told him his two-and-half-year-old son and three other children, were being dropped because of issues with staffing.

CityNews reached out to the centre but did not hear back.

“[It’s] really devastating. We’ve been at this place for almost a year now and to be dropped so quickly was really hard to comprehend. It’s still actually, to be honest, hard to comprehend,” O’Neill said.

“Lots of waves of emotion of what’s gonna happen. My wife’s in school right now, so is she gonna have to quit school? Am I gonna have to quit work?”

Staffing problems common in B.C. daycares, advocate says

Sharon Gregson, a spokesperson with the Coalition of Child Care Advocates of BC, is not surprised to hear about O’Neill’s issue.

“We’re definitely hearing about these kinds of situations, where programs can not operate at full capacity because they don’t have enough qualified staff or new programs have difficult hiring to open up with a full staff component,” she said.

Gregson says that’s because historically, childcare centre educators earn low wages and have poor benefits and working conditions. She acknowledges the province has made progress – including a $4 an hour wage enhancement but says it isn’t enough.

She hopes Tuesday’s B.C. budget announcement includes more investments to alleviate the problem.

“The solution to the childcare workforce crisis is a province-wide, fair, wage grid so that it’s publically funding, just like we do for teachers because that’s how need to think about early childcare educators,” Gregson explained.

In a statement to CityNews, Minister of State for Child Care Grace Lore says in part the government is “developing a wage grid to better retain and better recognize and compensate ECEs (early childhood educators).”

She adds they “have taken action to recruit and retain ECEs – by helping with the cost of education, enhancing wages and providing better access to training and professional development, and streamlining pathways for international ECEs.”

While O’Neill managed to find childcare through a desperate plea on Facebook, he says it’s 20 minutes further from their home. He adds other parents who had their children booted have not yet found a solution.

“We’re very disheartened and upset at how this was handled and it was not handled in a way that I think was fair, equitable, and just, it really put us in a challenging situation,” he said.