Proposed changes to the DNA in Ontario

[Judy Trickett]

I agree with Judy. If I have to go from 5 to 4 children, my rates will simply go up to compensate. It won't bother me to have less work LOL. Each family will pay 25% of my weekly fee instead of 20%.

I REALLY wish parents would care more and be more proactive about this. Because it will, ultimately affect them first and foremost. As I said before, and you have confirmed....instead of paying the $40 a day they now pay they will be paying $50 a day. That's an additional $50 a WEEK, or $2500 a year for the same care they get now. Daycare is like any other business, if the government controls the amount of product or service you can provide then the cost is inflated to reflect that. All the government is doing is causing a increased daycare shortage than there already is. And providers are gonna benefit financially with less work but the parents are gonna be paying through the nose for it.

[sunnydays]

I agree! This was the just of the meeting with CCPRN last night actually. Some kind of change is almost inevitable, but what the change will be is still undecided. If we rally together to push for a reasonable change such as teh accreditaion process put forth as a proposal by CCPRN, rather than being forced to work with agencies, we may have a chance to fight this. I know many many providers including myself would have to close down rather than work through an agency and/or have our number of children reduced. I think if we put it to our daycare parents that we may have to close out doors and they will not have daycare, they will be more than willing to write something in support of us In fact, there was a parent at my table last night who was there because she does not want her provider's daycare closed down.

Judy I have to agree with you. We will be licensed in some way in the very near future so instead of trying to get out of it we need to lobby for what sort of licensing model we want to see. This would be a good time for those in other provinces to share again what models are used in their provinces.

Actually if the agencies increase the number to 7 but keep the low ratio for preschoolers then it will mean they are over half full with school age kids and parents of infants have a hard enough time now with too many "big kids" in the home so they will flock to the smaller private homes. then because we provide a luxury of small ratio the rates can rise to at least what the parent would pay the agency plus a small ratio per diem and we just might come out ahead while doing less work - less kids.

I do see though that this only works for those whose own children are in school or older and not those looking to stay home with their own toddlers.

Having someone come to your house once a month does not make a caregiver more able to handle a larger amount of children so that argument is totally misguided.

If we are licensed we will also qualify for fee top ups and operating grants from the province so maybe there is merit. We just need to lobby for what kind of licensing we want. It will for sure weed out the providers that are only doing it temporarily, or not really committed due to the hassles of getting licensed and that too is good for us.

It is just the whole ratio/age mix that is the problem and for that we need to gather info from across the country and compare them to prove what can be done instead of letting them just pull numbers from a magic hat.

[sunnydays]

The comparison of what is happening in other parts of Canada at least, is now being researched my CCPRN to use to help lobby for a positive change rather than the current proposals. It was brought up at last night's meeting. For example, in BC, the inidividual caregivers are licensed and do not have to work with an agency to do so. I would be all for a system that makes home daycares safer and more accountable and I have no problem having safety inspections, proving my CPR, police checks, professional development etc. I think these standards would be a good thing as there are some terrible providers out there unfortunately who are ruining it for all of us.

Lee Dunster from Ottawa was crossing the country talking to providers and authorities while writing a book on home daycare - forgetting the name of the book right now but it is a still a great getting started read for home daycare.

She spoke at a home daycare conference here in Ottawa as the key note speaker back in 2001-2002 forget exact date - and I still remember a few of the things she said. One that comes to mind is in talking to someone from BC the authority was lamenting that too many "home" daycares were looking too much like institutional care and converting garages for their daycare and he was upset because he wanted them to have the homey feel - her comment was well when you instituted the rule that all rooms the child would be in had to have sprinklers in the ceiling of every room child went into that were connected to the smoke alarm system - well how can you expect providers to want water damage to their entire home every time they burn a piece of toast or broil bacon and the smoke alarm goes off - hence daycare goes out of the house to the garage.

Even then the ratios and number of children per home was being discussed by all levels of government so this is now over 10 years ago the conference was.

I see so many of the different daycare formats from the US as I belong to several yahoo chat groups and ratios, non-sensical rules etc. are often up for discussion. I would love to see a forum/meeting/working group that looks at what is happening in other places and compares them. Yes the ELECT report looked at childcare in a few countries but it picked the ones it wanted for it's document and didn't look at specifics for even our closest neighbours. We could use that information to lobby for what we want to see as a best case scenario.

[sunnydays]

SecondAve, I will scan the document this evening (I have a child napping in my office at the moment and can't get to my scanner..LOL). I am not sure if it can be uploaded as a post or how that works? Anyone know how I can get a scanned document onto the forum?

[dodge__driver11]

I am part of another Childcare group and one of the ladies went to a information meeting where they discussed possible ministry guidelines in the way home daycares are ran. (Sunny days in this correct??)

These are the changes that may come about in ONTARIO

The proposed changes that are being made to the ministry:

Home daycare providers will have 2 choices, to become registered or to be licensed.

1) Registered or currently known as informal daycares

*Immediately reduce from 5 children to 4

*Make our own children under 6 count in the ratio

*pass a home inspection

*complete a min of 12 hours of training before being permitted to accept children

*not allowed more than 2 children under the age off 2

*not allowed more than 4 children under the age of 11 including caregiver’s own children (I think it’s our own children under 6, but that part wasn’t clear)

*participate in mandatory annual training

*display all training and certificates where parents can see

*we have to be registered with a licensing agency

2) Licensed or currently known as private (working in conjunction with an agency)

*allow up to 7 children under 11 including caregiver’s own children

*allowed 2 children under the age of 18 months

*plus all the other current stuff that comes along with working with an agency

*also note that possibly according to both options that if you have a child that is diagnosed with diagnosed behaviour issues or handicapped that child counts as 2 in the ratio.

Also included in the recommendations for the ministry to consider is developing a database. It would include the caregivers information, the information on the police records check, the information with the CAS check, and if the caregiver is registered or licensed. It would also include information such as serious occurrences, fraud, etc. Agencies and the ministry could report information to this database, and it could include such information as the agency deems that the daycare provider is unsuitable. Parents would have access to this information and would be able to ‘confidentially ’ report to it. This would allow the ministry to follow up on any information that is in the data base. The data base would be set up in a way that it would notify the ministry of caregivers they thought were ‘high risk’ and these caregivers would have even more restrictions or more inspections, again unclear as to what deemed high risk and how that would affect things. But I keep thinking for someone like me who has a CAS record would that make me high risk? My CAS ‘consequence’ consisted of a phone call warning me not to repeat the behaviour and that my file was now closed. I was completely innocent, but the CAS worker didn’t investigate the situation and gave me a warning and closed the file. But, will that now make life hard on me under the new system where the ministry will now have access to that closed file? Plus that closed file would be part of the registry and make it more difficult for me to find children?

Now the gov is being completely ambiguous, they will not say what their plans are, provide us with a time line or nothing. The won’t even comment on whether they are considering the above recommendations, etc.

So what the CCPRN is asking is that all of us, daycare families, future families etc write to the media, write to the ministry, write to their MP’s. The CCPRN is supposed to be sending the information to us today, so I’ll pass it along too. The would like us to use strategic communication plan. Home daycare has over 80% of the childcare spaces, so we should have the biggest word in the changes that affect us. We should write about the positive stuff, reasons why we don’t want to be licensed (not to include the money aspect of things), stuff like how we are reliable, accountable, we use the best practices, many of us have qualifications, etc. They would like parents to state why they didn’t choose centre care, such as wanting a family setting, smaller rations, keeping siblings together, etc.

[Artsand crafts]

instead of paying the $40 a day they now pay they will be paying $50 a day. That's an additional $50 a WEEK, or $2500 a year for the same care they get now. Daycare is like any other business, if the government controls the amount of product or service you can provide then the cost is inflated to reflect that. All the government is doing is causing a increased daycare shortage than there already is. And providers are gonna benefit financially with less work but the parents are gonna be paying through the nose for it.

I would definitely do that unless the government decides to cap our fees on top (as I heard it has been done in another province, I think is Quebec). In that case I will be forced to close, move on into another business or go back to work in my original field. It wouldn't make sense to stay in this business if it isn't profitable enough. If this is not managed well the government will have to start dealing with daycare shortages or an increase of very low quality care. All government rules can be follow, but still that doesn't ensure a parents will have quality daycare. We can see that in several licensed daycare centers now.

Sunny days I am for sure writing a letter and telling my families to do the same. Thank you for sharing this info.

[sunnydays]

Dodge, thank you for posting...that is exactly the info we recieved last night You are a more energetic typer than me I think

[dodge__driver11]

np Sunny

I just copied and pasted lol

[momofnerds]

well the 2 and under doesn't make sense because all my kids are under 2. They go to school at 3.5or 4 yrs old so that would mean I wouldn't have any kids. Also, how can you classify your own older kids when they are in school all day. So in the summer I have to get rid of kids because mine are home.

also, I won't classify myself as a daycare, instead I will be a babysitter like all the rest of them on kijijji because its obvious that no one monitors babysitters.

[sunnydays]

I don't think it matters what you call yourself (babysitter or daycare provider) you would be subject to the same rules if you care for children in your home as I see it. And yes, if there can only be 2 under 2 and 3 under four, that would be enough right there to put most of us out of business as they leave for school by 4 and most of us cannot afford to provide school aged care.

well the 2 and under doesn't make sense because all my kids are under 2. They go to school at 3.5or 4 yrs old so that would mean I wouldn't have any kids. Also, how can you classify your own older kids when they are in school all day. So in the summer I have to get rid of kids because mine are home.

also, I won't classify myself as a daycare, instead I will be a babysitter like all the rest of them on kijijji because its obvious that no one monitors babysitters.