What some parents have done to search for alternative child-care amid Ontario college support staff strike

Children's backpacks and shoes are seen at a daycare franchise, in Langley, B.C., on May 29, 2018. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck

Aneisha Gooden called a dozen daycares to see if they had a spot for her almost-two-year-old daughter amid a strike at publicly funded Ontario colleges that has shuttered numerous centres last month.

But the Toronto teacher couldn’t find one centre with space for her daughter.

“They all said, ‘No, we’re sorry, there’s a waitlist. No, we’re sorry, we don’t have the space,’” Gooden told CTV News Toronto on Thursday.

Approximately 10,000 full-time support staff walked off the job on Sept. 11. Three weeks later, the job action continues as with no apparent end in sight after talks between the Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU) and the College Employer Council (CEC) broke down on Monday.

• READ MORE: ‘This is a huge deal’: Parents with no daycare options among Ontarians impacted by college support staff strike

The strike has not resulted in classes being cancelled for the most part but it has caused significant disruptions, including the closure of the on-site daycares operated by many colleges and staffed by union members.

Gooden had her daughter enrolled at one of Centennial College’s child-care centres, which was closed as a result of the strike. She said daughter had already adjusted to the place—a particular challenge for her child as it takes her time to warm up to new people.

“She had a gradual entry into her daycare where she got to get comfortable, and I got to get comfortable. Now we’re looking at a situation where I just have to drop my child and leave,” Gooden said.

Gooden says she took a day off work soon after the strike started to find an adequate alternative for her daughter. After striking out in finding a replacement child-care centre, Gooden said she turned to see if there was a Montessori or home daycares available—but still, there was nothing.

“So, now I’m panicking because I am like where am I putting my child?” Gooden questioned.

In the last few weeks, Gooden said she has put her daughter in the care of various family members, something that has been super helpful, though she says it’s not quite ideal. It wasn’t until just a few days ago, Gooden says, that she finally found someone who runs a home daycare and was able to care for her daughter.

“It’s close to my house, like 10 to 15 minutes away,” Gooden said. “Her prices were reasonable but, again, it’s just, I need daycare to come back.”

‘We have to find other daycares now’

Aamna Coskun tells CTV News Toronto she put her name down on the waitlist for George Brown College’s Nelson Mandela Child Care Centre when she was around five months pregnant with her son.

• READ MORE: Ontario falling short on reaching $10-a-day child-care goals: auditor general

In the days that followed the strike, Coskun, who founded her own HR consultancy firm, said she could reschedule her meetings so she could care for her toddler, but as the days turned into weeks, she started turning to grandparents for help and even considered her 17-year-old niece to babysit while she worked.

“We also looked into doing a lot of playdates with other parents because there were so many of us,” Coskun said, adding that she is part of a Whatsapp group with other parents whose children are enrolled at the George Brown child-care facility.

“It was so sad to see all the parents just panicking. ‘What are we doing? Can someone find a nanny? Can we find another ECE?’” Coskun said. “You’re playing Tetris with your life because it’s at that age when it’s a daycare it’s not kids who are a bit more self-sufficient, who can kind of be at home, these are kids who need diaper changes, who need care 24/7 so it is a little bit difficult and other parents, they have more demanding jobs, like they work at hospitals.”

By the third week, Coskun said they couldn’t see the light at the tunnel and now she, like other parents in her group, feel like they can’t wait any longer.

“We have to find other daycares now. We don’t want to, because many parents are like, ‘Well, it’s an adjustment for my child. I don’t want to put my kid through another daycare and location,’” Coskun said, adding she started calling daycare centres last week and had just enrolled her son into a new facility, a room with older children, as of Wednesday.

“It was a lot of calling other moms to say, ‘Did you find someone?’ I found a spot in an infant room, my son’s not an infant, so I’ll call parents and be like, ‘Hey, put your daughter or son in there because they have space.’ The concept of the village has been really great because it’s gotten a lot of our parents together but it’s the most unfortunate time, because it’s stressful.”

‘I couldn’t imagine taking our kids out and putting them somewhere else’

Though it has been a full-time job for Kiran Kang to find alternative child-care for her twin toddlers amid the strike, the lawyer says she and her husband are “waiting out the storm” to send their children back to the facility at Sheridan College.

“I think all parents are far too familiar with the continued struggle to find affordable and available childcare in this province, and arguably across the country, and I know from having twins that experience of trying to secure childcare was multiplied,” Kang said. “Trying to find a place that has two consecutive availabilities is like looking for a unicorn.”

Part of what drew Kang to this child-care centre, outside of the fact that her husband attended the same daycare at Trafalgar campus years ago, was the fact there were college-level facilities and educators committed to advanced teaching methods who wanted to see children succeed—which is why Kang is in full support of the strike action and has even shown solidarity with the early-childhood educators and childcare staff by visiting the picket lines.

“I couldn’t imagine taking our kids out and putting them somewhere else. I want to continue to show support for the daycare staff that we are eagerly awaiting to return to, and so we are just scraping together care where we can,” Kang said on Thursday.

“Which includes my husband and I, who have full-time jobs, taking time out of our busy schedules to watch our kids while we also try to maintain our professional commitments, relying on additional caregivers that we’ve kind of scraped together in our community and relying on family where we can.”

Kang is one of many parents supporting college workers at this time, the Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care (OCBCC) noted to CTV News Toronto.

“I know that making alternative child care arrangements can be stressful for families, but most families I’ve heard from understand that the college staff, including their kids’ ECEs, are trying to improve stability of college services, which includes college child care,” OCBCC’s Carolyn Ferns said in an email.

In a previous release, OPSEU said it empathizes with the families whose childcare planes were directly impacted by the strike.

“Every parent understands the difficulty of not having childcare available when they are trying to juggle work and other family responsibilities. Many of our members working at the colleges—including those currently on strike—are in the same position,” the union said in a statement on Sept. 17.

A spokesperson for George Brown College said its childcare programs, serving infants through preschoolers, remain closed as they are exclusively staffed by full-time educators who are part of OPSEU. Across their programs, the college said it serves around 400 children under the age of four.

“We have reached out to Toronto Children’s Services, while will work with us to explore alternative program options should the strike continue for an extended period,” George Brown said. “Some families may be interested in finding care elsewhere, and we are committed to supporting them if they choose to transition to another program.”

That said, eight before and after-school care programs they offer within public schools for school-aged children remain open.

Centennial College did not say how many children they served at their child-care centres, but said they are “not in a position to keep our child-care centres running” as they cannot meet the staff-to-child ratio requirements.

“We respect the right of our valued full-time support staff to collectively bargain, and we are hopeful for a fair and timely resolution that enables us to welcome families back to our child-care centres soon.”