As of today, Manitoba is the first province in Canada to introduce comprehensive safety plans and codes of conduct for its 1,105 licensed child-care facilities, Family Services and Consumer Affairs Minister Gord Mackintosh announced.
“We want fun, healthy and safe places for our children to learn and grow. Child-care providers do a great job of caring for our kids. Today, we are introducing safety standards so that all parents can rest assured that reasonable steps have been taken to protect their children,” said Mackintosh. “Child-care facilities have risen to the challenge with extraordinary efforts and I am most thankful.”
The Child Care Safety Charter was introduced as part of Manitoba’s five-year action plan for child care called Family Choices. It asks that all child-care facilities develop safety plans and codes of conduct that must be approved by the province and reviewed annually by the facility.
Safety plans include details for:
• properly supervising children indoors and outdoors;
• keeping unwanted people out;
• taking swift action in emergencies;
• responding when children have severe allergic reactions;
• dealing with bomb threats, fires, extreme weather and health emergencies;
• taking action when children or staff are threatened; and
• planning for evacuation and communicating with parents.
Codes of conduct must state that:
• everyone must be treated with respect;
• there will be no inappropriate use of email, computers or the Internet;
• there will be no bullying, harassing, discriminating, abusing or acting in any way that put others at risk; and
• there will be consequences for violating a code of conduct.
Extensive consultations, including more than 40 workshops with child-care facilities plus followup advice and support, formed the groundwork for the charter. Parents may view the safety plan and code of conduct resource at www.manitoba.ca/childcare under Publications.
“This initiative shows that children and families are a priority for this government,” said Brenda Paley, executive director of Action Centre Day Nursery of Winnipeg. “There was a time when initiatives such as this would not have included the child-care community. The workshops were informative and very helpful. Overall the experience was absolutely excellent.”
The evolution of the charter includes a standard that child-care facilities must maintain locked doors to keep out intruders. Measures are to be in place by April 2011. Where this is not practical because, for example, a child-care centre is in shared space with a school or community centre, other methods of controlling visitor access will be approved. The province will cover reasonable costs for equipment to implement this requirement, the minister said.
