Daycare debacle leaves families scrambling

About 25 families have been left scrambling to find child care after the operator of a daycare franchise abruptly fired staff and disappeared before the new facility even opened its doors.

The Willowbrae Academy in Langford was slated to open on Veterans Memorial Parkway this summer.

“They were doing tours and there was a lady who was showing us around. We paid the deposit to secure a place,” said Lucy Faulkner, who in July paid $914 in deposit and registration fees to secure a spot for her 22-month-old daughter, Addison.

“It was supposed to open in August and the dates kept being put further and further back. Then they said the first of September,” Faulkner said, adding registrants were initially told that licensing issues were to blame for the delays.

Suddenly, she said, all communication dried up. “People were finding out from the Facebook page that suddenly the director wasn’t there anymore,” Faulkner said. “People were emailing her and there was no reply.”

On Thursday, Willowbrae’s corporate head office in Dartmouth, N.S., posted a statement on Facebook saying there were problems with the franchisee.

“On approximately Aug. 10, 2018, we received a phone call from the franchisee stating that he had dismissed his staff and planned to delay his opening,” the statement says.

“This came as a total surprise to Willowbrae Academy Corporate. He did state that he would be refunding any existing deposits and registration fees collected. Since that time, he has been noncommunicative and non-responsive.”

The company’s initial statement said the corporate office did not have access to the deposits and registration fees that were paid to the franchisee and would be unable to issue refunds.

It was later updated to say it would be honouring “all deposits and monies parents have made to the Langford academy” upon provision of a scanned copy of a receipt.

Calls to Willowbrae were met with no comment.

Late Thursday, Hal Johnson, co-host and owner of BodyBreak, a Willowbrae affiliate that provides fitness programs for the daycares, called the Times Colonist to say the parent company was still at a loss as to what had happened but that everyone — including contractors who haven’t been paid — would be made whole.

“I don’t want to say what happened because I don’t know what happened. Phone numbers have been disconnected and that’s not a good sign,” Johnson said.

“Something has gone wrong on that end. I don’t want to speculate what it could be. But in a sense that doesn’t matter — that back end. Because we represent Willowbrae, we’ve got to make this right and try to get this place open as quickly as possible to help the parents out.”

Johnson said new ownership of the franchise is being sought and he is considering investing in it himself.

He said Willowbrae dropped the ball by not providing adequate information to clients, and pledged to contact them all and apologize.

“People are giving us their children. They have to trust us,” he said.

Faulkner said she was fortunate to find care for her daughter for three days a week, but suspects other parents won’t have been so lucky.

Told of Johnson’s assurances, she said she has no intention of doing business with the company again.

“I don’t think he can say anything to me that’s going to alleviate the stress of the last few weeks that this has caused us,” she said. “If they phone me and apologize, I’ll certainly listen to what they have to say, but I certainly wouldn’t let them look after one of the most precious things in my life.”

Langford Mayor Stew Young said additional daycare spaces are desperately needed in his rapidly growing community.

“It may be a good operator, but they certainly didn’t do a good job of managing the business opportunity,” Young said, adding that the situation has got to be extremely stressful for parents.

“They’ve probably missed the opportunity now to go and find daycare before school starts. It’s very frustrating. Very frustrating.”