Child care providers are fighting a crisis situation, fuelled by declining wages for early childhood educators that barely allow them to make a living, according to many of the people who care for the corridor's children and other child care advocates.Suzie Soman, director of early childhood development services for the non-profit Sea to Sky Community Services Society (SSCS), said the SSCS child care workers have been forced to take wage cuts of $3 to $5 per hour between 2002 and now in order to keep the SSCS services open, because the society could no longer afford to pay them what it had.The non-profit SSCS runs multiple daycare programs for young children of different ages in Squamish and Pemberton. The SSCS used to pay child care workers $16.32 per hour and now can only give them $12.24, Soman said, because it's reluctant to increase parent fees and will not alter the quality of service despite changes in governmental funding."We would like to see all our staff across the board making $20 an hour," Soman said, but the question now is how to make that happen.Local child care providers such as Soman are speaking out now because the child care community in B.C. has celebrated May as Child Care Month since 1982, taking the time to honour early childhood educators and draw attention to some of the challenges faced by the men and women in this line of work. Squamish early childhood educators from the SSCS and other local facilities took about 20 of the kids under their care for an advocacy walk down Cleveland Avenue to Stan Clarke Park last Thursday (May 22), seeking to inform the community about the difficulties child care providers currently face.Joined by representatives from the B.C. Government and Service Employees Union (BCGEU), participants distributed information about the crisis they see in child care staffing, hoping to alert local parents and families to the issues.Speaking after the walk, Soman said it's tough for child care providers to make their case to governments faced with electorates where many people don't have children or daycare to worry about, and thus have other priorities."People who don't need this service tend not to care any more," Soman said. But the need is still there for many - local parents struggle to find and pay for spaces in daycare, and the SSCS has had to resort to fundraisers such as a June 21 beer-and-burger silent auction to supplement its child care programs. The money raised goes towards the services' needs and frees up some cash to add back into staff wages, albeit in a trickling pace of two per cent per year. In the meantime, parent fees bear a disproportionate burden, SSCS staff say. Lisa McIntosh, program consultant for the SSCS Child Care Resource and Referral Program, said increased fees are what parents feel as a result of the funding and staffing crises. A year and a half ago, the average cost of a day in child care would be $40, but today the average cost is about $45 or $50, she said.Meanwhile, Soman said, the SSCS child care programs go into deficits trying to provide the best possible care. "There's so much put on us to make sure these children have the best care and we go into deficit to provide it," she said.Child care advocates call for a government-funded universal child care program in B.C. as one possible solution to this strain on the system. A recent release from the Coalition of Child Care Advocates of B.C. (CCCABC) and the BCGEU puts forward a proposal for an accessible, high-quality, publicly funded and comprehensive child care plan that they say is affordable for the government."It all comes down to the government providing us with a universal child care system," treating child care like the public school system, McIntosh said. Quebec has such a system in place already, so it is possible, she added.But SSCS staff say they need parental and public voices on their side to pressure for these changes.
