by JENNIFER LAVIOLETTE

There has been talk amongst the community recently that there is a shortage of daycare service available in Boissevain. It was brought to the attention of Turtle Mountain EDO, Shirley Bell that there are parents who are on long waiting lists or looking at not returning to work because they can’t find adequate daycare.

Bell was presented with the concern regarding the shortage of daycare from parents with children, business people, and parents wanting to return to work.

“Having a shortage in daycare is limiting the number of women who can return to work,” commented Bell. “It’s a restriction that is leading us back to the dark ages where women had to stay home and were not allowed to work.”

Currently the only daycare service available in Boissevain is Tiny Turtle Playroom. At one time there were approximately four home-based daycare services operating in Boissevain, but they have since all closed.

Colleen McKinney, a licensed daycare worker, ran a daycare service from her home from 1999 until this year. On average, McKinney would take care of five children ranging from three months to four years in age. Her daycare ran from 6:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. from Monday to Friday. McKinney had no requests from any parents for services over the weekend, but would have considered it if it was a demand.

“After eight years of providing daycare service, doing this 10 hours a day, five days a week, I wanted a change,” stated McKinney.

For her there were no issues with being able to issue receipts or take daycare subsidies since she was fully licensed, which are some of the most talked about reasons as to why most of the home-based daycares closed down.

Shirley Bell is currently looking at trying to get Early Childhood Education courses at the Turtle Mountain Adult Education Center and will work with interested individuals, who are interested in operating a home-based day care by assisting them with their Cooperative Works Loan application.

“There is definitely an opportunity present for home-based family daycare,” noted Bell. “In Brandon, some parents don’t want their child to go to a daycare center because they feel that there might be less quality of care provided to kids since there are more to look after.”

Bell felt the general census from previous home-based daycare operators was the government is supporting daycare centers rather than home-based ones, and that there is a lack of support for home-based daycares.

A daycare shortage is news to Missy Ransom, Director of Tiny Turtle Playroom.

 “If people are starting a new job and moving to Boissevain or just thinking about it and hear there is a shortage of daycare in the community, it can be detrimental to their decision to come here,” remarked Ransom.

Tiny Turtle Playroom can facilitate and is licensed for 56 kids. They have designated eight of those spots to infants ages four months and divide the rest up for kids between the ages of two and 12. Preference is given to those children who need full-time daycare services.

Currently there are 16 workers employed at Tiny Turtle Playroom and three of them are in the Workplace Training Program. This program allows them to work at a daycare and attended classes at Assiniboine Community College on Thursdays and Fridays to take the ECE courses.

“It has been pretty good for us to fill any vacancies for daycare workers,” noted Missy Ransom. “Full-time positions are always easy to fill, it’s the casual ones that are more difficult.”

There hasn’t been a waiting list for available spots at Tiny Turtle since April, however there is a bit of a demand for school age kids needing daycare. Right now Tiny Turtle doesn’t have the required space for a huge number of school age kids needing care after school.

 “We are looking at approaching the school division to start up a program in one of their classrooms where we can provide daycare services for school age children,” mentioned Ransom, “it’s being done in Souris and Killarney right now. We would also need to look at hiring some more staff.”

At the current time there is not a shortage of daycare at Tiny Turtle just a need to expand space. No advertisements have been placed in the local community paper stating that individuals are looking for home-based daycare services and Colleen McKinney says she has yet to hear or receive phone calls from people looking for daycare.