Investing in the future
Two Island women working on research project that tackles child-care issue
Challenges surrounding child care on Prince Edward Island are an ongoing concern, and thanks to a grant from Status of Women Canada, two Island women are spearheading a research project that delves into the issue.
Jillian Kilfoil and Pam Atkinson are completing the first year of a three-year project focused on removing barriers for women in the workforce who are facing child-care issues.
“It Takes a Village” focuses on what the Island’s child-care situation looks like. To discover the issues, focus groups were conducted and an assessment survey was circulated across the P.E.I.
Of 300 responses, half came within the first 24 hours — something Kilfoil said is telling about just how big of an issue this is for Island families.
“People were really eager to talk about it,” Kilfoil told The Guardian, noting the survey’s comment section featured a lot of women who were thankful for being asked about their struggles.
One question asked about child-care arrangements, including babysitting and early learning centres.
“What we see is that people have a lot of ad hoc strategies to deal with this, and it’s kind of a patchwork. They don’t necessarily have this one reliable day-care provider all the time but they have different people helping out at different times.”
In an email to The Guardian, Atkinson said even those who have a steady day-care provider face issues when it comes to balancing child care with employment.
The day-care system in P.E.I. doesn’t meet the needs of parents who work later than 5 p.m. or earlier than 7 a.m., she said.
“This is a lot of families, considering this includes retail, tourism, service industry including hotels and restaurants, health-care providers, shift workers, factory and plant workers, seasonal workers, entrepreneurs and business owners and many more.”
Since the survey protects the confidentiality of participants, The Guardian was unable to speak directly to those who responded, but the researchers sent along one woman’s response anonymously.
“He goes to day care, but I need to arrange for someone to pick him up and take him to their house to feed him supper and care for him until I finish my shift. If I work 3:30-11:30 p.m., I would have to figure out late care. But if I worked 7 p.m. until 7 a.m., then I need overnight care. Sometimes I pay a day-care fee and a private sitter fee for the same days.”
Atkinson said the largest group of respondents (more than 50 per cent) said career and professional life had somehow been negatively affected by child-care issues.
As someone without children, Kilfoil said she never realized how much child care affects not only the parents and children who require such services, but how it affects the whole population.
“Child care affects everyone because children’s health and well-being affects everyone. If you invest in adequate, quality, reliable child care now, you will spend less money later,” she said. “It is much easier to get a child on the right track, than to get an adult who has had years of trauma — of harm — back on track.”
Kilfoil said she and Atkinson have a great advisory committee supporting the project, which includes representativesfromgroupssuchasthe Department of Education, Early Learning and Cultire, the Department of Family and Human Services, Newcomers and the French day cares. They will present their findings to the committee in February to create an action plan for the next two years of the project.
“Based on this year’s research and assessment, we’ll be able to create those priorities with that multi-stakeholder group,” Kilfoil said.
“They’ve already been doing a lot of work and we think this project can help to push certain priority areas forward.”