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| Claudia and Damian Alfonso pose with their daughter, Lucia, 18 months, at their Markham home. Lucia and some daycare friends left the centre's playground, crossed a busy parking lot and were found in a nearby drugstore. ANDREW FRANCIS WALLACE/TORONTO STAR |
Despite all our efforts to select the "best" daycare for our little ones, can we ever be 100 per cent confident and assured that the care these centres promise is what they're practicing when parents aren't around?
It seems like there's an endless amount of bad news daycares maintaining operation and sometimes the shenanigans are out of the operator's knowledge. It was at the beginning of the summer that I recall reading about a deceptive daycare caterer. "Former employees tell stories of milk bags left overnight in car trunks, ground beef driven to Ottawa in personal cars with no coolers and of undercooked chicken rushed off the grille to meet delivery deadlines," tells the article published in May by the Toronto Star.
It's stories like these that really shake you and make you second guess your decision. I can only hope that the centre we've chosen for Brayden will never make headlines like this.
If you're interested in investigating whether your neighbourhood child care centres are licensed, or have any conditions placed on them by the ministry, you can visit: http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/childcare/finding.html
Just know that you will not be able to find out the problems that lead to the conditions.
You can never know for sure, but be vigilant and ask a lot of questions... all the time!
ReplyDeleteNot what I'd want to read over my coffee first thing in the morning...
Julia
If you've checked into the licensing, heard from other parents and gotten good vibes, that's about the best you can do...it's tough to think that your little one will be under someone else's care, but then, later, there's school...And just remember, this kind of news is what makes headlines. Was this daycare operator ever investigated? Licensed? From what I read, no.
ReplyDeleteGrammie
OK, I reread the article, it was the supervisor who was not licensed, not the daycare. Doesn't make the Ministry look too good though, does it...if there's anything coming out of this, it will be that other daycares in your areas will be all the more anxious to prove their certification and their good care...
ReplyDelete