Play dates between home daycare providers

Hi ...I am a member of the Child Care Providers Resource Network (CCPRN) Ottawa and we were told this Sept. that we are no longer allowed to have play dates in each others homes. (No more than 5 children on the premises under the age of 10 regardless of the number of adults present.) This, we are told, is part of the Day Nurseries Act of 1990. Up until this Sept., many of us had been having play dates, and believing they were fine. Some of us can remember our mothers having play dates with other mums and children in the neighborhood and can't imagine telling them that they shouldn't interact with each other in their homes (only in parks, playgrounds, libraries, etc.) The CCPRN wrote the Prov. for clarification for its 800 members and the Prov. did confirm and added that they would prosecute any child care giver having play dates in their homes. Feedback would be really appreciated...esp. from outside Ottawa.

I would like to see something in writing from the Province clarifying this. I was going on the assumption that the children would have to use that home as their 'home away from home' for it to count. I'm sure it's still fine to meet other dayhomes at the park, as we do.

I'm sorry to hear this as I do want to be law-abiding but enjoy playdates with other providers.

Apparently this is true as about a year ago some ladies in the neighbourhood were reported and when the workers came they gave them a package outlining what was and wasn't allowed and it is true that you are not to have more than 5 children (daycare) in your home (not including your own) under the age of ten regardless of how many adults. It is a $2000/day fine if you are caught.

The organization I belong to has approx. 800 members and even they didn't know that we shouldn't go to each others homes. It has not been handled well by the Prov. I think the reason things have changed might be due to the fact that the Min. of Child and Youth Services recently transferred to the Ministry of Education...and we all know how that Ministry has messed up this year. I hope we can go back a bit in time and visit each other without this new 'threat' factor looming over our heads.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Emilys4Guppies

I would like to see something in writing from the Province clarifying this. I was going on the assumption that the children would have to use that home as their 'home away from home' for it to count. I'm sure it's still fine to meet other dayhomes at the park, as we do.

I'm sorry to hear this as I do want to be law-abiding but enjoy playdates with other providers.

---

Sorry ...I am new to this Forum and keep messing up my replies. Several of us have been asking the Prov. to provide a 'book of rules' and several months ago they said they were working on it. Hmmm....that will take a while. In the meantime, they have assured us in Ottawa, that they will prosecute offenders, many of whom don't even know they are breaking the rules. Yikes.

That is absolutely ridiculous. If they want people to follow the "rules" then they should have a website where we can download the paperwork or where we can have an address and have it sent to us. How else do they expect us to know unless we get into trouble first?

I was told that it is a very "grey" area and that the best choice for providers was to meet somewhere public... park, early years, indoor plauground, toy library etc. But not in someones home.

so true Giraffe. Keep in mind too that they would not know who is in your home anyways unless some nosy neighbour happened to report someone. It sucks when there are really good providers out there which get reported by some neighbour because they had a dispute. That is what happened in our area. He hated kids. Didn't like the fact that 4 close neighbours were doing daycare. Some were not even over and got reported. The others were not really over but maybe overlapped by say a half hour, with after school vs full day. People need to mind their own business

This is a copy of the letter that the CCPRN received from the ministry in answer to their question about playgroups.

http://www.ccprn.com/en/information-...ry-guidelines/

Thank You!

Like everyone has an unsafe home! Or has a fitted out car to drive to these locations some of which are not as safe as our homes! I think the Prov. needs a reality check. AND if it is a grey area...they should not be prosecuting people until they get it clarified.

Do you have a copy of the letter CCPRN sent back to the Prov. It raised a lot of good issues but I haven't been able to find mine. Thanks.

Definitely best practice to be cautious until they make clearer guidelines available to us. I don't want to do anything to risk my reputation or business.

We are like the moms of the 1950s..and 60s. We stay home with the children of today. Remember how moms used to bring their children to each others houses for coffee and snacks? I can remember my mother really looking forward to the relief from being home alone with us. This ban on play dates is like telling those 'stay at home' mothers that they could not visit each other!!! Why don't we have the same rights? And there is a common law statute that should protect us. We are being paid to act like parents while we care for children but we obviously do not have the same rights in the eyes of the Prov. BUT the 'in loco parentis' statute would seem to define us as being 'like' parents with all the same restrictions, and supposed benefits. AND what about the second section of the Canadian Charter of Rights....re: Freedom of Association. All citizens are supposed to have to right to gather for all manner of reasons...short of treason!!! Play dates definately do not qualify as treason!! I really think the Prov. is going waaay to far!

just for clarification purposes:

In Ontario 2 caregivers can meet in a public place ie parks or any place that charges an admission fee.

Although now 2 caregivers can not meet on a private premises, as caregivers we can still meet with other 'Moms'. We can have playdates with other moms: for example a friend of mine when she has her 3 daycare children she is not permitted to visit me, but on days that she does not have her daycare children she can come and visit and bring her 5 children and it not be illegal. It isn't the amount of children we have in our home per say, it is who has 'charge' over the children. We can't have more than 5 daycare children on our daycare premises or take our daycare anywhere that is a private premise which will have more than 5 chldren, but a slight exaggeration but we can have 50 children with their Mom's visiting.

So, the idea is now, if we would like to have the socialization or play dates as we did in the past it just can't be with another caregiver but Moms instead. :(

I still believe it is safer for me to have play dates in my daycare than it is for us to meet at a public place that may not be designed for younger children in mind.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by dragonlady3

AND if it is a grey area...they should not be prosecuting people until they get it clarified.

---

Truthfully, it isn't a grey area. When I lived in Petawawa (7 - 16 yrs ago) and used to attend the caregiver meetings there, we once had a ministry rep from Ottawa come in and strictly told us that we were not allowed to have other children on our premises unless we had less than 5 children (other than our own). This included any child neighbours, friends, and visiting family.

I think the ministry just turned a blind eye to play dates because there are so many benefits to it. All it takes is one accident/incident for the ministry to enforce the DNA to its truest form. But they aren't denying us all play dates, just any with another caregiver unless we have less than 5 children in total (else than the children that live on the premises).

But what confuses me most is the private premises part of the DNA for informal childcare ... a private premise is any premises that isn't public property. Which if the ministry wanted to, could they not tell us we can no longer meet at places that are privately owned but open to the public, such as certain play groups, farms, museums, etc?

I do agree that the ministry needs to be more clear on their policies and update policies to be more realistic. I do have a vehicle that I can travel with, I am not worried about my driving with the children, I am worried about the crazies that might be on the roads when I am!

Here are some links to the DNA:

http://www.e-laws.gov.on.ca/html/sta...es_90d02_e.htm

http://www.e-laws.gov.on.ca/html/reg...s_900262_e.htm

This one is a little more user friendly and was useful for school, not so much for home daycare:

http://childcarelearning.on.ca/child_care_setting/

http://www.cdrcp.com/ccip/day-nurseries-act

I'm finding myself more and more confused by this legislation. I was inspected many times over the last 15 years and on some occasions we were having play dates with another day care. (I am downtown and several neighbours have been aggravated by the extra parking demands and inconvenience of my day care). In 2000, Lise Hamer of the Ministry of Child and Youth Services wrote both day cares a letter stating we were to "limit visits between the two day care businesses". She never told us what 'limit' meant....2 visits a week, a month??? but we were not told to STOP visiting! We were not fined for visits and faced no charges until 2009. That seems to be when the attitude changed.
Anyway, CCPRN seems to be taking this issue seriously and has asked all of us to contact our MPPs with our concerns and maybe encourage a more realistic attitude re: play dates. They wrote:" The impact on child care will lead to poorer quality care and potential loss of child care providers through: increased isolation of caregivers; decreased opportunities for children to socialize with other children and interact in a new environment; decreased learning/networking opportunities for caregivers; outing opportunities limited to public space which often are less safe than a caregiver's home; no opportunity for experienced caregivers to mentor new caregivers on incorporating quality proven daycare practices...."

Dragonlady3, I fully understand why you would be confused :)

The ministry overlooked and encouraged play dates between caregivers in the Ottawa area for many years (I can't speak for other areas), but in the same breath they discouraged it in other areas such as Petawawa. As a provider that is new to the Ottawa area, one of the benefits was having play dates, and boy do I love them! Truthfully, in Petawawa a ministry rep from Ottawa would attend and lecture us during our caregiver meetings reminding us to NEVER have more than 5 kids on our premises excluding our own (or children over 10).

Yet, when I moved here, a whole world opened up because play dates were considered ok. I noticed the change or movement towards no play dates when the child who was in childcare drowned during a caregiver play date :( I really feel for everyone involved, it was truly a mistake / accident (I agree it that it shouldn't have happened), and from what I have heard and understood the caregiver was a good, kind, and compasionate caregiver. Due to this unfortunate situation, the ministry decided it was in the best interest of everyone for caregivers to not have play dates :(

Anyway, my point was, that yes, the 'no playdate' policy has always been there, just the ministry turned a 'blind eye' to it. Also, like many laws, it is up for interpretation and the discretion of those who enforce the laws / acts that we must follow.

It is up to parents and caregivers who want play dates to band together as one voice won't make changes but many will. I have a copy of a petition that can be signed, I would have to ask the CCPRN if we are allowed to make copies, but my parents and I have signed it and will submit it in hopes of making a difference.

While the ruling may have been there for always it seemed to be interpreted differently in different places as some of you are noting. I called the ministry when I lived in London to confirm a few things. First did children over 10 count or not count in my limit of 5 and the answer was didnt' count so I had two older siblings that came in the summer. Second question was about my own children's friends coming over to play afterschool either in the yard or in the house and they said while in the yard was preferable they wre allowed in the house because in an emergency or whatever they could simply be sent home in if they were old enough to play outside on their own - over 6 then they were in effect being "watched" by their own parent that was at home. And my last question was about having someone over that brough their own kids be it a parent and child or a caregiver and her chidlren and the response was it was ok for the caregiver to come because SHE was responsible for her daycare children no matter where she took them and I was responsible for mine so we were each responsible for 5 daycare children which was within the law.

We do have people that skirt the laws though such as in Ontario you can not have a home with 10 children and 2 caregivers like you can in other areas. But I know of a couple of incidents where the care was being provided in one home and the other caregiver had her children arrive and leave from her house but they immediately went to a house a few doors down and the two caregivers did the care together. Technically they both had their own daycare and had a "playdate" all day every day. There had been a push since we live so close to Quebec to look into the two caregiver 10 kids model but it never passed. In doing those reviews they may have discovered that some were doing it anyways in their own way to skirt the rules and started to crack down. I do know a lot of this came to light after the accident as Nicole mentioned.

It would appear that the Prov. has been really inconsistent re: this issue over the years. I would really like input from other regions of the Prov. about this. Would you all pass on this question to your friends or relatives around the province and we can all see what 'shakes out of the tree'. This could be really relevant given the fact that the Prov. is now prosecuting people, many of whom may not realize that the interpretation has changed. :no:

Just a quick noted posted to my email by another CCPRN member. It does add a little to the Provinces confusing arguments.

"food for thought?
Since the Ministry contends that our homes are primarily used for Daycare, unlike Libraries and children play areas at restaurant, why is it that I have never heard of any home child care proivder claiming more than 25 or 30% of our household expenses from our income statements?

I do claim more than 30% of my home :) In Ontario, never claim more than 50% because you are redflagged for an audit.

When you do the break down, 1/3 of my home is space dedicated to daycare, much of the main floor and bedroom level is shared.

What I would love to see is when calculating the hours, it should be taken into consideration especially when calculating the business home of use part, that daycare actually uses my home more than my family. I run daycare 50 hrs per week, plus interviews, plus extended hour care, etc, but my family is only here to sleep basically, which means that most of my hydro (especially when hydro is the most expensive) is being used by the daycare, in the evenings (when hydro is the cheapest) my family is basically sleeping!

I can only imagine how cheap my household bills would be if I wasn't running a home daycare.

There are some days, I think that I would be further ahead working outside of the home because when I consider the cost of running my home, the lease of the van for daycare, the cost of supplies for daycare, etc, I don't really have much of an income. It costs me 3.5 kids to run daycare which is a big reason why I stress when I have a space available.

I guess the Prov. hasn't thought about how difficult it is for caregivers to keep track of their own charges while in public venues with other mothers and caregivers. I am constantly on pins and needles counting my charges and making sure they are within my line of sight at the park or library etc. It seems safer to have a smaller gathering of local mothers in house or in an ENCLOSED yard. I think the Prov. should be more specific and say that caregivers are not permitted to allow daycare children in pools as that seems to be what spurred this problem.

I agree. Years ago I had the children in a local park and a dog bit one of them. It wasn't serious but it scared the bejeesus out of the child and me. Another time we found broken beer bottles in the sandy area and the sprinkler. Oh. and there was the time a group of homeless people who had slept in the park had mixed with the children. These things never happen in my own home or yard. AND this is a very nice neighborhood...you just can't control public property!

Hi....I have had an inquiry about play dates and wondered if any of you had this experience or know someone who did. The question was related to the fact that I wrote (see above) that I used to have play dates and was inspected, and the Prov. allowed them...as long as they weren't too frequent. The same thing happened last year and I was told that they were forbidden (with the usual caveats re: numbers of children and adults we all discussed above). Am I the only one this happened to??? Has anyone else had this experience?:blink: