Four key steps needed to improve home day care

Child Care Providers Resource Network puts forward solutions that will help ensure the safety of home child care in Ontario

OTTAWA, Nov. 26, 2013 /CNW/ - A recent report by the Toronto Star (Saturday November 23, 2013) has stated that the Ontario Ministry of Education was aware of numerous child care violations and has admitted it failed to look into four complaints against the Vaughan home where 2-year-old Eva Ravikovich died last July.

Home-based child care providers are ready to work with parents and the Ministry to provide top-quality child care. According to the CCPRN it is absolutely possible to develop a safe, transparent and publicly managed system of child care in Ontario. This system does not need to cost taxpayers billions of dollars or levy a huge administrative burden to government.

Ontario child care is in crisis and the safety of our children must be addressed immediately. We need a child care system that encourages partnership and empowers everyone to ensure that our children's early years provide the best foundation for optimum child development.

This system is affordable and would be easy to manage.  It can be affiliated with existing provincial programs such as the Ontario Early Years Centres and above all, it should encourage cooperation between all stakeholders. We must all work together to build an affordable, quality child care system that will ensure our children's early years provide the foundation for a lifetime of growth, development and positive achievements. This can be done in four key steps:

Step 1: Establish provincial early learning and care health, safety and welfare standards for home child care.

Step 2: Share these standards with parents and independent home child care providers through a province-wide public education campaign.

Step 3: Establish a provincial registry of home child care providers to unite them and connect them to the appropriate provincial support and resources. Core features should include basic caregiver qualifications, training and membership in a support network such as the Child Care Providers Resource Network (CCPRN), ongoing training and resources for parents and all home child care providers.

Step 4: Set up a voluntary system of accreditation built on a common framework that will ensure all independent home child care providers provide optimum high quality care. This program would assure parents that their caregiver is committed to meeting standards and continuously improving the quality of the service they provide. Accreditation can promote a standard of care based on and exceeding the Day Nurseries Act while incorporating the E.L.E.C.T. (Early Learning for Every Child Today) framework.

Independent home child care providers are accountable for the quality of the care they provide. They are motivated to be part of a system that recognizes their uniqueness and empowers them to provide the best possible care. However, to provide the highest quality care possible, they also need provincial child care health, safety and welfare standards, with an emphasis on developmental learning.

Home child care is woven within the fabric and culture of each unique community. This includes care provided in a family's own home by nannies or relatives and care provided in other homes by relatives and home child care providers. By its very nature, home child care adapts itself very differently in rural and remote settings, in suburbs and in urban downtown cores.

Ontario's children are our most precious resource and our future. Every single one of them has the right to the best possible care.

Quick facts

• 80% of children are cared for in unregulated child care settings. This includes care provided in their own homes by nannies or relatives and care provided in other homes by relatives and home child care providers.
  
  
• It is legal in Ontario to care for up to five children (under the age of ten years old) in the home (in addition to the caregiver's own children).

About the Child Care Providers Resource Network of Ottawa-Carleton
CCPRN is a non-profit, charitable organization that provides service to over 1,200 caregivers, 12,000 parents and 7,000 children in Ottawa. It is the only organized voice for independent child care providers. CCPRN is a highly successful model, which could be implemented province wide for the benefit of all children in daycare.  For more information visit our website, www.ccprn.com

Image with caption: "Independent home child care providers are most working parents' first choice for child care. This is because many see the home child care setting as a more personal, loving, home-like environment where there is a greater flexibility and personalized options that provide children with the close bonds they need. (CNW Group/Child Care Providers Resource Network of Ottawa-Carleton)". Image available at: http://photos.newswire.ca/images/download/20131126_C5055_PHOTO_EN_33852.jpg

SOURCE: Child Care Providers Resource Network of Ottawa-Carleton

Doreen Cowin, Executive Director, CCPRN; 613-749-5211 ext 23; [email protected]