It goes without saying that finding a place in a daycare or early childhood center (CPE) is a real headache for Quebec families. According to the Ministère de la Famille, nearly 30,000 children who should have had access to a place in educational childcare before December 31, 2022 were still waiting as of March 31, 2023 and nearly 28,000 pregnant women are pre-registered at La Place 0-51. That’s a lot of families hoping to find childcare quickly.
We welcome from the outset the major job creation project deployed by the Ministry of the Family, which provides for 37,000 additional new subsidized places by 2024-2025.2. These new places will certainly meet some of the needs of families.
A major challenge: the shortage of qualified personnel
Remember, however, that the problem experienced in the field goes beyond the lack of available places. In 2021, there was already a shortage of 10,000 educators in childcare services in Quebec. With the creation of places, this shortage is all the more important today.
The challenge also and above all lies in the lack of qualified educators. For example, what happens if the educator is absent in the morning to take charge of her group?
It’s a real snowball effect: no trained personnel in sufficient numbers, no replacement possible in the event of unforeseen events, no parent at work and therefore no worker to contribute to the Quebec economy!
Added to this is the importance of the qualification of the teaching staff. Quebec requires all environments to comply with a qualification ratio to ensure the quality of services offered to our toddlers, in this period when everything is at stake in terms of development.
Work-study program and RAC96 in early childhood
It is following several months of mobilization and consultation of all stakeholders in the early childhood sector that the Early Childhood Work-Study Program (COUD) and the RAC96 approach were born. These two solutions have a common objective: to meet short-term labor needs while maintaining the quality of services in the long term, by focusing on the development of skills, the diploma and the qualification of educators. . Around this innovative project of the Board of the Sectoral Workforce Committee – Social Economy and Community Action (CSMO-ESAC) are mobilized the six national associations of employers, several ministries and all the trade unions.
The Early Childhood Work-Study Program attracts and trains people starting their college studies through the work-study mode. The RAC96 approach, for its part, aims to recognize the skills of experienced people. These two solutions are win-wins both for the employers, who obtain financial support allowing them to remunerate the hours of RAC and studies of their personnel, as well as for the employees, who obtain a diploma opening the doors to a future qualification and better working and salary conditions.
In just a few months, these two projects were deployed in all regions of Quebec, thus offering more than 800 communities concrete solutions to deal with the labor shortage.
These two solutions support hundreds of managers to maintain the service to families, allow as many children, or even more, to have access to a place in CPE or daycare and their parents to devote themselves fully to their career.
During this Week of Educational Childcare Services, let’s collectively promote the solutions within our reach to offer a network of quality educational services where everyone can flourish. Let’s focus on developing the skills of educators to reveal the talents of toddlers.
* Co-signatories: Odette Trépanier, Executive Director of the Social Economy and Community Action Workforce Sectoral Committee (CSMO-ÉSAC); Julie Frappier, director of the RAC96 early childhood project (CSMO-ÉSAC); Mylène Leduc, Director of the Early Childhood Work-Study Program (CSMO-ÉSAC); Francine Lessard, Executive Director of the Quebec Council for Early Childhood Educational Services (CQSEPE); Samir Alahmad, President of the Association of Private Daycares of Quebec (AGPQ); David Haddaoui, president of the Association of non-subsidized childcare facilities (AGNSI); Sandro Di Cori, Director General of the Quebec Association of Early Childhood Centers (AQCPE); Mario Ranallo, President of the Rassemblement des Garderies Privées du Québec (RGPQ); Élyse Lebeau, Executive Director of the Association of Early Childhood Center Managers (ACCPE); Béatrice Alain, Director General of the Chantier de l’économie sociale; Louise St-Jacques, President, Center St-Pierre; Charles Fillion, Representative, Coalition of Independent Community Training Organizations (COCAF); Valérie Michaud, professor, management of social and collective enterprises, University of Quebec in Montreal (UQAM); Benoist de Peyrelongue, general manager of La cuisine collective Hochelaga-Maisonneuve (CCHM); Richard Gravel, General Manager of the Collective of Integration Enterprises of Quebec (CEIQ); Richard Foy, Director of Member Services and Development, Quebec Network of Housing NPOs; Marie-Josée Paquette, Executive Director of the Quebec Council for Cooperation and Mutuality (CQCM); Michel Du Cap, union advisor for the Quebec Federation of Labor (FTQ)