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Parents form action group on daycare

- December 10, 2008

Almost everyday, Margo Kirk hears from a parent desperate to get their child in daycare. And everyday, she relates the sobering news: the limited spaces and the staggering waitlist of more than 300 names.

ā€œIt can be very stressful,ā€ says Ms. Kirk, the executive director of University Childrenā€™s Centre, a nonprofit daycare on the Dalhousie campus. ā€œWe get calls from people whose babysitters have just quit, for example, and Iā€™ll have to say, ā€˜sorry, we might have a space two years from now.ā€™

ā€œWe just canā€™t be responsive at all to immediate needs.ā€

The centre has room for 78 children at its two locations: one on South Street, where care is offered to children ages four months to five years, and in the Life Science Centre, where thereā€™s a morning nursery school program, plus lunch and after-school programs.

Alison Thompson, associate professor with the Department of Chemistry, asked about space for her son even before he was born. And not only at the University Childrenā€™s Centre. She called the YWCA, Saint Maryā€™s, Peter Green Hall and other centres. The response was always the same: weā€™ll put your name on a waiting list. You should phone back often to check where you are on the list.

It was a frustrating time. Not only was she learning to care for her newborn, she was keeping an eye on her research group at pilipiliĀž»­ and worrying about her return to work with childcare very much in the air. It was just by sheer luck that she found out that the YWCA on Barrington Street was setting up an infant care facility before it was even in placeā€”ā€œwe got in purely by chance,ā€ she says.

Relating her experience to other parents at pilipiliĀž»­, she discovered it was hardly unique. Other faculty, staff and students related how theyā€™d get a call for a space only after their child was in school. Or, how theyā€™d created a patchwork of care, relying on babysitters, parents and neighbors so they could return to work.

ā€œSo many people need daycare,ā€ says Prof. Thompson. ā€œItā€™s not a stupid, out-there thing to request ā€¦ but right now, people have no expectations theyā€™ll get their child in (anywhere) despite how many times they phone and fill out the application forms.ā€

Prof. Thompson and 30 like-minded parents have formed an action group and taken their cause to the consultants for Dalhousieā€™s campus master plan. She says Dalhousie needs two additional facilities for daycare, with room for at least 200 children and babies.

At a meeting last month for the master campus plan, Larry Sherman, the Toronto architect leading the consulting team, related how the need for daycare has come up repeatedly. He confessed it was an issue he didnā€™t expect. ā€œWe are finding the campus does not serve its community in many ways,ā€ he said.

But with the campus plan still in a ā€œlistening phase,ā€ Prof. Thompson says the problem is too acute and canā€™t wait. Sheā€™s investigated a provincial initiative that aims to increase accessibility to daycare by providing funds in the form of a forgivable loan to cover up to 75 per cent of construction and outfitting of new nonprofit facilities, with the remaining 25 per cent available as a one per cent loan or as a financial contribution from a partner. The Early Learning and Childcare Initiative, offered through the Nova Scotia Department of Community Services, is likely to accept applications early in the new year.

ā€œTo enable the application, we need a commitment from the university,ā€ she says.