Earlier this week, the Manitoba government announced the elimination of child-care fees for 3,000 low-income families across the province, as part of changes to the Child-Care Subsidy Program.
Child-care has long been a subject of conversations, given the many challenges facing staff. Jamie Grouette, Executive Director of Magical Horizons Daycare in Dauphin, said the change is welcome, but doesn't address the most severe problems the child-care system is currently facing.
"I think that any kind of family that can get supported for child-care so that they're able to return to work or school is a wonderful program, subsidy's always been sort of an integral part of how daycares function and how families are able to, some families are able to afford daycare, so I think the subsidy program is great...the only hurdle that I see is that we're so limited for daycare spaces in Dauphin that it's really hard for families to find child-care, so it's great that [the Province is] making it more affordable, but it's the actual spaces that are difficult to find," said Grouette.
The construction of Dauphin's new child-care facility got started earlier in the year, after several years of constant delays. Even once that new space is complete, it'll only draw attention to another large problem facing child-care systems: low staffing, especially here in the Parkland. Grouette said Assiniboine College's Early Childhood Education program didn't run this year, because there weren't enough students.
"Most daycares in town are already on provisional licenses because they're struggling to find trained staff to work in their centres," said Grouette.
One contributing factor to why child-care isn't an appealing career for lots of post-secondary students is the wages. Many feel the pay doesn't reflect the work, even with the Province including an increase in child-care worker wages in this year's provincial budget in March.
"The Government has made great strides, things have definitely improved for workers, but I think that in order to get more people to go into the early childhood education field so that staffing isn't an issue, they really need to start paying wages that are in line with what the staff are doing on a day-to-day basis," said Grouette.
In the Province's news release announcing the subsidy changes, they say program eligibility is based on income, number and age of children, number of days required for care, and reason for care.
