1.1 Child Care Choices
Parents have many child care choices available.
In BC, any facility providing care to three or more children not related by blood or marriage is required by law to obtain a Community Care Facilities License. This is to ensure the health and safety of children.
Anybody caring for fewer children or to children related by blood or marriage is considered a “License-Not-Required” child care provider, LNR.
Your local Child Care Resource and Referral offers to LNRs the option to register their child care for parent referrals. To be eligible for parent referrals an LNR has to fulfill standards of operations including certain safety and training requirements. Once these are fulfilled an LNR becomes an RLNR a “Registered License-Not- Required” child care provider.
The Summary of Regulated (licensed) Child Care Facilities in British Columbia (Schedule E of the BC Child Care Licensing Regulations) provides information such as the minimum staff requirements, requirement of training for the child care provider, the maximum hours a child can stay at a child care, the maximum numbers of children in each child care, the grouping of ages and much more.
The Government has also created the “Parent ‘s Guide to Selecting and Monitoring Child Care in BC“. This explains child care choices in plain language.
Please refer to the “Summary of Regulated Child Care” and “A Parent’s Guide to Selecting and Monitoring Child Care in BC” and find the possible child care option(s) for each of the following family scenarios:
Scenario 1:
Karen has two daughters, aged 5 and 8 years. Her 5 year old attends Kindergarten for the mornings only and her 8 year old attends the same school every day until 3 PM. Karen is going to school too. Her classes finish at 3:30 PM. After school she can come right away to pick up her children.
Scenario 2:
Jack is a single dad, with a son who just turned 2 years. Jack works every day from 12 PM to 9 PM. Jack’s sister is available to help look after his son 2 times a week after her work from 5 PM until Jack returns home.
Scenario 3:
Haruka has a son, 14 months old. Haruka has to return to work and needs care for her son Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday from 8:30 AM to 3:00 PM.
Scenario 4:
Manuela has a daughter and ever since she returned to work, Manuela’s mother has taken care of her daughter. Now her daughter is almost 4 years old. Manuela thinks that her daughter also needs other children to play with, but at the same time, she likes it that her mother is looking after her daughter.
Scenario 5:
Eric and Carmen are both working full-time until 5 PM. Their daughter is 3 years old and their son is 7 years old. Their son is attending school until 3 pm. Eric is able to drop off their son at school in the mornings at 8:40 AM
Scenario 6:
Elly and her husband Tim are recent immigrants to Vancouver. They have two sons aged 4 years and 19 months. Elly takes English classes two afternoons (from 1 PM to 4 PM) a week and her husband takes English classes full time every day from 9 AM to 4 PM