I read somewhere that there's a movement to have private home daycares to become licensed, without them having to join agencies....what's the scoop on that? It's individual licensing.
Is that still being pursued?
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I read somewhere that there's a movement to have private home daycares to become licensed, without them having to join agencies....what's the scoop on that? It's individual licensing.
Is that still being pursued?
I know that this is not your question Betsy. But it can be done Saskatchewan does it. They lic. the invidual and we do not work with agencies.
What province are you in? Some provinces have this (Saskatchewan, New Brunswick, I believe Nova Scotia) but most don't. In Ontario, for example, the only way to be "licensed" is to work for a licensed agency. The agency holds the license, not the provider. There's no other way to get any sort of license in Ontario. This is one of the things that CICPO (the Coalition of Independent Childcare Providers of Ontario) was arguing for when Bill 10 was being debated in parliament. Agencies are not the same across the province; some are for-profit, some are non-profit, some are good, some are, well, not. They also take a large cut of the provider's income (usually around 30%) and set the rates the provider can charge. We were asking for individual licensing monitored by the province, but the Liberals didn't listen.
Currently, CICPO has been in talks about possibly launching a "co-op" type licensing model, where we essentially create our own agency, obtain a license from the government, and charge providers the smallest amount possible. Providers would then be able to be "licensed" without having to fork over 30% of their income, and would still have the autonomy to set their own rates and policies, etc.
Whether or not the Liberal government will allow this to happen remains to be seen, and if it does, it won't be for a while. As of now, our only options in Ontario at least are to remain private or work for an agency.
Crazy Eight....the Coop is still on the table. I'm attending the meetings with the MOE, agencies and others from CICPO. We're presenting at the next meeting on Oct 15th! We'll know more after that, but the Ministry is interested. I'll keep everyone posted :)
Ontario is so far behind! No licensing available for independents. The most we can hope for is the Cooperative. And believe me, the agencies are fighting it!
That's really too bad, I can tell from this forum that a lot of you want to be licensed, and I totally understand. I wouldn't want to give away that much income to an agency either. I really appreciated our system after reading everything here about agencies.
A few months ago, a few of us throughout the province had an opportunity to sit down with consultants hired by the province, to get our opinion on how to create more licensed childcare spaces. They did ask how we would feel about agencies. :(