GUELPH – The federal government’s Canada-Wide Early Learning and Child Care (CWELCC) program is transforming access to childcare both nationally and locally, but it’s also creating staffing challenges, according to a county report.
The report, Wellington County’s Children’s Early Years (CEY) division director Mandy Koroniak, points out many Registered Early Childhood Educators (RECEs) and other childcare staff left the sector during the COVID-19 pandemic leaving programs short staffed just as an enrolment boost from the CWELCC began to impact it.
The Province of Ontario entered a CWELCC agreement with federal government in March 2022.
“The CWELCC System is transforming access to affordable licensed childcare in Ontario,” states Koroniak in the report.
Families with children up to age six in a CWELCC-enrolled licensed childcare program have seen a fee reduction of 50 per cent, relative to 2020 fees, the report states.
To increase access to affordable licensed childcare spaces, Ontario is additionally supporting the creation of approximately 86,000 new licensed childcare spaces across the province (relative to 2019) by December 2026.
“To achieve this goal, a sufficient high quality, qualified workforce of RECEs is needed, at a time when many programs continue to experience difficulty staffing the spaces that they currently operate,” Koriniak explained.
“There is a huge demand for childcare in this area,” social services committee chair councillor Dave Anderson told Wellington County councillors at the Nov. 30 meeting.
“We’re also experiencing shortage of staff … So we’re basically looking at trying to establish a qualified workforce and recruitment and retention,” he stated.
“We’re also looking at possibly improving our compensation, benefits and overall workplaces, just to entice people to come here … Wages have to be increased to tempt people to begin in that program,” Anderson added.
A CEY staffing survey of all 89 licensed centre-based childcare programs within Guelph and Wellington County showed “a clear majority” of programs have implemented changes to their operations related to staffing challenges.
The survey found that many programs have operated at a reduced capacity due to staffing shortages, meaning that they were not able to provide care for the maximum number of children they are licensed for.
In addition:
- 32% are relying more on non-registered program staff than on RECEs to staff their centre;
- 20% of programs have approvals from the Ministry of Education for supervisor positions to be filled by staff that do not meet legislated qualifications; and
- 25% reported relying on a supervisor to cover staff absences unexpectedly to meet ratio requirements four to six times per month.
The survey also found 57% of licensed childcare centres made at least one operational change to their program in the last 12 months, including:
- 36% pausing enrolment;
- 9% closing a program room resulting in decreased service levels; and
- 4% shortening their hours of operation.
“These operational changes negatively affect the quality and stability of childcare programs, as well as access to licensed childcare by families, leading to broader impacts on overall workforce participation. Not surprisingly, many survey respondents called for improved recruitment and retention strategies, including competitive wages and benefits,” the report states.
The report indicates sufficient compensation is broadly identified as a challenge to recruitment and retention across the sector. The CWELCC System is supporting the compensation for RECEs earning lower wages and has set a wage floor of $19/hour in 2023. It is also providing a wage increase of $1/hour annually up to a wage cap of $25/hr.
Meanwhile, the Association of Early Childhood Educators Ontario and the advocacy group Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care have recently called for a publicly-funded salary scale of $30 to $40/hour for RECEs and at least $25/hour for non-RECEs. The organizations report that in 2022, only 22% of RECEs and 9% of non-RECEs were compensated at this level.
Apprenticeships allowing individuals to work becoming qualified to become registered with the College of Early Childhood Educators are one path to reducing the workforce shortage.
Through funding received under the Canada/Ontario Early Childhood Workforce Agreement in 2022-2023, the CEY division was able to support bursaries for ECE apprenticeship students with a permanent address in the County of Wellington or City of Guelph and there are currently 26 ECE apprenticeship students at the Guelph Conestoga College campus.
“While this local strategy will promote an increase of RECEs in our service delivery area, it will not fully address recruitment and retention challenges across the system,” the report notes.
The report states increased access to affordable licensed child care under the CWELCC system is “an exceptional and positive system transformation. However, it points out substantial growth in a qualified workforce is needed.
“This can be supported through recruitment and retention efforts that include improved compensation, benefits, and overall working conditions, the capacity to train more individual qualified educators, and broad recognition of RECEs as valued professionals,” the report concludes.
