The Bambinos Universe early childhood centre (CPE) in Luskville opened its doors to its extended community on Friday afternoon to celebrate its 25th year in operation.
The daycare centre’s assistant director Diane Daigle says that despite ongoing staffing and funding challenges, which she attributes to a lack of support from the provincial government, she is proud of the services she has been able to offer to children over the last quarter-century.
She has been with the CPE, which operates the Bambinos Universe daycares in both Luskville and Shawville, since the Luskville operation first opened.
“I’ve had children at the daycare who today, as parents, are bringing their own children to the daycare,” Daigle said in a French interview. “It’s nice to see former daycare attendees now want the same ‘bien-être’ for their own kids.”
Luskville farmer Alexandre Martin is one of such former daycare children. He attended the daycare Daigle ran out of her home before she helped to open the Luskville Bambinos location.
His two-year-old daughter started at the daycare this fall, and so far Martin says he’s happy with the experience.
“It’s pretty nice, having the kids learning so much about gardening and farm life. They’re always outside,” Martin said. “To see that my kid is at a daycare where [ . . . ] they clean up the chicken poop and make their own high-bed garden, it’s a plus.”
Daigle said the programming offered has evolved substantially over the daycare’s lifespan, including expanding the menu to include more locally grown produce and developing a strong focus on nature education that sees the children spend significant amounts of time outdoors.
“For me, personally, contact with nature is something I’m very passionate about, and I’m surrounded with a team that has the same interests as I do,” Daigle said.
“We’re very proud of what we do today, but they’re all changes that didn’t happen overnight.”
Not without challenges
The 25 years of running the daycare haven’t been without challenges.
Competition with other employers in the Outaouais, including the public service and schools who solicit daycare educators to work in their classrooms, makes it challenging for the daycare to hold onto staff.
“The salaries need to be raised,” Daigle said. “The fact that we have fewer employees means the people we do have on staff have to work harder, longer hours, and spend a lot of time training people we hire who may not have the same experience.”
Stéphanie Vachon is the representative of the early childhood education workers for the CSN public service union of which many of them are members. She said the starting salary for an entry-level CPE worker is $21.60 an hour, and caps out at $30.03 an hour after 11 years of experience.
This staffing challenge is not unique to the Luskville daycare.
According to a pamphlet distributed by the union representing CPE workers across the province, 3,000 workers quit their jobs in the 2021-2022 calendar year.
“To compensate for the loss of colleagues, the workers who stay in place have to take on heavier workloads,” it explains in French, noting that in 2022-2023, about 3,600 of 26,000 workers took a short-term medical leave from their positions.
On top of being short-staffed, Daigle said she’s seen an increase in children with special needs looking for spaces in the daycare, who often need one-on-one care throughout the day. She said only two hours of that educator’s time are covered by the province.
“So when we accept these cases, we end up in a deficit. It’s us who has to use our own pocket money to pay for extra support,” Daigle said, explaining the centre is therefore not always able to welcome children with special needs for budgetary reasons.
“It breaks our heart, it’s not something we want to do, but because of the way it’s financed by the government, it’s challenging.”
Unionized CPE workers across the province will be voting on a strike mandate in November to try and make progress on negotiations that might improve some of these challenges.
While staff at at least two Pontiac CPEs are not unionized, Daigle said the results of the negotiations may bring positive changes to the daycares she operates.
