Regina child care centre forced to cut programs and staff to stay afloat

Breanne Arnold’s nine-month old daughter Hadley was born deaf. It’s a diagnosis which Prairie Lily’s Sacred Heart educators have embraced.

“I offered for our speech language pathologist to come and talk to the daycare and train them and they welcomed the opportunity with open arms, they’ve already done the training for Hadley,” Prairie Lily parent Breanne Arnold said.

Their willingness to adapt has been a relief for Arnold.

“I’m not worried about her development being fostered here,” Arnold said.

And while the centre has provided help to many children and families, that might be at risk moving forward.

“It hurts to think about that not being something that you can do for the families and children that you care about so much,” Prairie Lily executive director Cara Steiner said.

“We’ve had in our programs siblings and families and years and years of building relationships with people, and we don’t want to see that change.”

Seiner said with the current lack of funding and $10-a-day-child care program, the centre is at risk of closing if they don’t make cuts to programs and staff. She said new centres are able to access more funding than current places which puts them at a disadvantage.

“If we were to close, and someone else was to come in and open a new centre here as a brand new operator, they would automatically be able to charge more fees than what we are charging right now,” Steiner said.

Other centres like Little Memories and Scott Infant and Toddler also told Global News they are operating with a deficit. It started after the $10-a-day child care program began.

To avoid closure, Steiner said it will take a model of long-term, sustainable monthly funding from the province.

“Where there is a formula set so that all programs have a chance to be successful and all programs have an even playing field for what they’re receiving monthly,” Steiner said.

Assistant deputy minister of education, Sameema Haque, said this type of funding model is already in the works.

“In the background we continue to work on the model, but we want to make sure that we don’t create any sort of disparity between different operating models,” Haque said.

Steiner said changes need to happen soon.

“We can’t wait anymore” Steiner explained. “We have to deal with this situation now or there will be big changes in the landscape of child care in the city.”

Changes that could leave children like Hadley waiting.

“Most centres have waitlists that are years long and unless you’ve been on the waitlist when you’re pregnant, you’re probably not going to get in,” Arnold said.

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