Province under fire for limiting after-school care options
New child-care regulations require all five-day-a-week after-school programs for 4- and 5-year-olds to become licensed daycares.

Thestar.com
Laurie Monsebraaten
Nov. 22, 2017

Ontario is vowing to help community-based after-school programs comply with new regulations after parents in Toronto’s child-care-starved east end say government rules are leaving them in the lurch.

The ongoing child-care crunch in the area bubbled to a boil earlier this week after a popular Leslieville program offering classes in dance, art, science and technology and martial arts was deemed to be operating an illegal child care because some of the children were age 4 and 5.

If the program wanted to continue, unlicensed, it had to limit children’s participation to three days a week.

“Who works three days a week?” said parent Mark Fraser. His 7-year-old daughter is among almost 100 children in the program, including about half who are picked up from area schools five days a week.

“How can this be helping provide families with the child-care options they need?” Fraser said Tuesday.

On Wednesday, after enraged parents signed an online petition and flooded social media with complaints, Indira Naidoo-Harris, minister responsible for child care, sent ministry officials to Sprouts Growing Bodies and Minds on Carlaw Ave. to work out a solution.

“We have been stepping in when (programs) are facing issues of compliance because I regard that as an important part of the job,” Naidoo-Harris told the Star.

“So if someone is not compliant and isn’t completely aware of all of the rules and needs some assistance and support, we’re going there and helping them,” she said.

The regulations are part of child-care legislation introduced in 2014 in response to a scathing ombudsman’s report after a rash of deaths in unlicensed home daycares, including Eva Ravikovich who died after she was left in a hot car.

In addition to beefed up inspections and new rules for home daycares, the law mandates school boards to provide before- and after-school programs for families that request it, starting with full-day kindergarten in the fall of 2016 and extending to students from Grades 1 to 6 in September 2017.

School boards, such as the Toronto public and Catholic boards that don’t provide the programs themselves, are allowed to contract with licensed child-care providers or authorized recreation programs.

After-school programs for 4- and 5-year-olds not run by the school board can be operated only by licensed daycares. And that is where recreation programs such as Sprouts are running into problems with education ministry inspectors, Naidoo-Harris said.

Since September, the ministry has issued 10 compliance orders. All are in the GTA, including four in Toronto’s east end.

Recreational programs “play an important role when it comes to parents and children” but they have to be safe, Naidoo-Harris said. The government needed to “create clarity” in the system in light of the ombudsman’s recommendations, which called for more attention to children under 6, she added.

Sprouts co-owner Emily Pengelly said most kindergarten-age children come to her classes with nannies or parents who remain onsite. The few 4- and 5-year-olds who attend five days a week on their own, have older siblings, she said.

“We are not here to babysit. It’s not what we do. We are teachers. And if a child isn’t ready to learn or isn’t interested in what we offer, then they shouldn’t be here,” she said in an interview.

As a result of the ministry visit Wednesday, the program will continue as before but under a different corporate structure, Pengelly said.

Shiralee Hunter Hudson, a member of parent group Toronto East Enders for Child Care, said Sprouts is a highly-regarded program that many of her neighbours use.

“Parents understand more than anyone else the need for regulation. But we need spaces. After-care is not optional,” she said.

“With the cost of living in this city, it’s impossible to live on one income. It’s just not tenable. Parents need spaces and those spaces don’t exist in the way the ministry wants them to exist. So what are parents supposed to do?”

Area MPP Peter Tabuns (NDP Toronto Danforth) who met with Naidoo-Harris Wednesday, said if before- and after-school care was available in schools for every family that needed it, the scramble over Sprouts wouldn’t be an issue.

“Then we would know it is regulated and who was looking after the kids, and parents who wanted something else could go out to the private sector and deal with all those vagaries,” he said.

“But right now, parents are dealing with a mix of providers, including a number of small businesses, some of which are much better than others, and for parents it’s just a very confusing world,” he said.

NDP MPP Catherine Fife blamed the government for being out of touch with the realities of working families, and for deeming recreational programs unsuitable but then “not putting a contingency plan in place.

“Parents are still struggling to find licensed, quality child-care that they can afford -- especially in Toronto -- and they are looking to these recreational programs to fill the gap,” Fife (Kitchener-Waterloo) said in an interview.

As of September, 83 per cent of Ontario schools are offering before- and after-school programs, Naidoo-Harris noted. But in Toronto, just 74 per cent of schools offer the program and in those that do, space restrictions mean all families can’t be accommodated.