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Central Okanagan parents are urgently trying to find a new daycare for their children after one is closing a classroom due to licensing issues and staffing shortages.

Parent Dragica Schmidt was left scrambling earlier this week when she received an email from her childcare provider Building Blocks Educational Childcare, that 24 infant/toddler spaces would close after Nov. 5 due to staffing shortages.

The daycare has been struggling with low staffing levels, specifically with infant/toddler spaces with several educators on maternity leave, medical leave or COVID-19 related absences, said director Brie Elson in an email to parents.

“We have done everything in our power to keep all our spaces open and, at the beginning of September, we had sufficient infant/toddler educators for all our infant-toddler programs. Throughout the last two months, however, we lost staff to other opportunities, other industries, and moves home to be closer to family,” she wrote.

The daycare has been unable to replace them and is now unable to maintain compliance with Child Care Licensing Regulations overseen by Interior Health. Proposals requesting more time to hire educators and exemption requests from the health authority have been denied, Elson wrote.

Building Blocks has two locations in Kelowna and serves more than 300 families, according to a press release.

It has has tried several routes to increase its educator base in Kelowna: applying for many Labour Market Impact Assessments, bringing teachers in from other countries, working with teachers from out of province to transfer credentials to B.C., and financing the continuing education of many members of their faculty.

“There are just not enough teachers to service the childcare spaces in our region, or in our province,” Elson wrote.

Schmidt took to Facebook to find help and managed to connect with a nanny, who will be shared between herself and a neighbour.

“We were just in shock and basically panicking… to get into Building Blocks, we were on a waitlist for two years. I was four months pregnant when I went on their waitlist and I just knew it was going to be so difficult to find care. It just seemed like an impossible thing,” she said.

Her 16-month-old son loved going to Building Blocks and loved his teachers, so she hopes he will eventually get his spot back. She said while she can afford it, nanny’s are often more expensive and not always the best daycare option for everyone.

“We got lucky... there are quite a few families in panic mode and have no solution,” she said.

Childcare educator positions have long been in demand in B.C. In 2018, the province announced funding for new daycare spaces and is providing a $4 wage top up for early childhood educators.  

Melissa Hunt, executive director with Childhood Connections – Okanagan Family and Childcare Society, said there are six Central Okanagan programs, with roughly 195 spaces that have had to close or weren’t able to open new funded spaces due to the lack of childcare educators.

READ MORE: 'Crisis situation': New Kamloops daycare fills quickly, underlines childcare crunch

“The staffing shortage is causing the biggest problem and you need to have early childhood educators with infant toddler designation in infant/toddler rooms in order to be in compliance with Interior Health regulations,” Hunt said.

Rising housing costs during the pandemic and more people moving from the Lower Mainland and Alberta, and new this summer from Ontario, have impacted the sector as educators move elsewhere to find places to live with lower living costs, Hunt said.

READ MORE: No easy answers to make new B.C., Kelowna homes more affordable: CHBA

There are educators interested but delays with getting their certification and backlogs with criminal record checks are preventing centres from complying with regulations so they don’t open new spaces or have to shut down recently opened ones, she said.

“It’s also the nature of the sector that it’s heavily female-dominated. So (educators) will go on maternity leave and usually not return as they will choose to stay home and raise their own children,” Hunt said.

"Many childcare centres in the region, as well as across the province, are closing spaces due to a lack of qualified staff. Childcare providers have been sounding alarm bells around this for years. The provincial and federal governments are funding many new childcare spaces but with no new qualified educators to service them, Teachers are being pulled from existing spaces, forcing them to close," reads the Building Blocks release.

In a statement, Interior Health said licensing officers have been working closely with Building Blocks since March, providing support and opportunities to address challenges and to support compliance with provincial law.

"Ultimately, health authorities have a legal obligation to ensure children in care are safe," according to the health authority.

- This story was updated Nov. 6 at 9:30 a.m. to include a comment from Interior Health.

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