Introduction

This concept briefly describes the Manitoba Early Learning and Child Care Program, regulated child care providers in Manitoba, the contents of the dataset at MCHP that contains information about child day care cases, day care subsidies, and includes an analysis of kids at risk and day care conducted at MCHP. SAS code for determining the number of child care spaces per capita by area and year is available (internal access only) .

Manitoba Early Learning and Child Care

The following information is from the Manitoba Early Learning and Child Care website - available at: http://www.gov.mb.ca/fs/childcare/about.html - (accessed September 14, 2011).

"Manitoba Early Learning and Child Care oversees the operation of child care in the province. The Program is committed to accessible, high-quality child care for children from 12 weeks to 12 years of age and offers a number of valuable services.

What we do - Manitoba Early Learning and Child Care:


• licenses and monitors child care centres and family child care homes according to The Community Child Care Standards Act and Regulations;
• provides grants and program assistance to eligible child care facilities;
• works to place children with special needs into child care settings through the Inclusion Support Program;
• classifies all child care assistants and early childhood educators who work in licensed child care centres;
• assigns a child care coordinator and subsidy advisor to work with each licensed facility; and
• provides child care subsidies to eligible families to help with the cost of care through the Subsidy Program."

Regulated Child Care Providers

Beach et al. (2009) of the Childcare Resource and Research Unit (CRRU) (for more information on CRRU see the http://childcarecanada.org/about/what-we-do web site) defines regulated child care providers in Manitoba as follows:


• " Child care centers: Full-day centre-based services provided for more than four continuous hours per day and three or more days per week to more than three infants or to more than four pre-school age children of whom not more than three are infants, or to more than four children who are enrolled in kindergarten to grade 6 in a school
  
  
• Nursery schools: Part time centre-based programs for more than three infants or more than four preschoolers of whom no more than three are infants, for a maximum of four continuous hours per day, or for more than four continuous hours per day and less than three days/week
  
  
• School-aged child care centres: Services outside school hours for more than four children ages 6-12 years (and may include children attending kindergarten)
  
  
• Family child care homes: Care in a private home for a maximum of eight children under 12 years (including the providers own children under 12 years). Not more than five children may be under six years; of these no more than three children may be under two years
  
  
• Group child care homes: Care in a private home by two caregivers for a maximum of 12 children (including the providers' own children under 12 years of age). Not more than three of the children may be under two years
  
  
• Occasional child care centres: Care on a casual basis for more than four children of whom not more than three are infants". ( Beach et al., 2009 , p.86)
  
  
• Aboriginal child care: "Manitoba is committed to continuing to work with First Nations communities and the federal First Nations and Inuit Child Care Initiative to support licensing of early learning and child care programs and services on reserve through the Manitoba First Nations Child Day Care Regulations and Monitoring Initiative." ( Manitoba Government, & Healthy Child Manitoba, 2005 )
  
  "Manitoba does not require child care programs on-reserve to be licensed but the Child Care Program assists facilities on-reserve if they choose to become licensed. Two on-reserve child care facilities have chosen to be licensed. Sixty-two child care facilities have been established in First Nations communities under the federal government's First Nations/Inuit Child Care Initiative. Manitoba post-secondary colleges routinely contract with First Nations communities to offer the diploma program in ECE, customized to meet the needs of each First Nations community. A certificate program in Aboriginal child care is offered through Red River College. There are 57 Aboriginal Head Start programs in Manitoba; they are not required to be regulated but may choose to become licensed"( Beach et al., 2009 , p.86).

Datasets

The MCHP Data Repository holds a dataset containing Child Day Care Program (CDCP) data. The following is a brief description of the information available in this dataset.


• Data related to day care facilities includes the following information:
  
  
  • Generic Facility - specific information (one record per facility);
  • Space available in each facility and changes over time;
  • Staff in each facility: positions, start and end dates, changes over time;
  • Billing period in each facility, payment types, changes over time
  
  
• Data related to individuals (children, parents/applicants, staff) includes the following information:
  
  
  • Generic person specific information for each individual in the CDCP system;
  • Child information: facility attended, start-end dates, changes over time
  • Applicant/co-applicant information, approval dates, changes over time;
  • Education information, level attainted, graduation, changes over time
  
  
• Data related to the linking of the ID of the individual to a scrambled PHIN includes: (allows linkage to health utilization data)
  
  
  • ID - ID of any individual in the CDCP system
  • Link - shows whether it is linkable to Manitoba Health PHIN
  • SCRPHIN - Manitoba Health PHIN for linked individuals

Note: When linking different datasets containing variables with the same name, these variables should be re-named.

Note: Data variables (i.e. Start Date, End Date, Graduation Date, Application Date, etc) in all databases are using Access date format (DATETIME20) and can be converted to SAS formats using:

BILLING_START_DATE = datepart (BILLING_START_DT); format BILLING_START_DATE yymmdd10.;

Subsidized Day Care

MCHP has information on children that receive subsidiaries from the government for day care spaces. These subsidiaries are provided through the issuing of operating grants. The data shows how many spaces are in each day care and how many of these spots go to kids with subsidiaries but there is no information on whether the remaining spaces are filled with other kids. In Manitoba, 45-50% of families using licensed day care are receiving a fee subsidy.

Kids at Risk and Day Care

MCHP researchers have done preliminary analysis regarding kids at risk and day care spots. At risk children were considered to be children with any one or more of the following life experiences:


1. they lived in a family who had received or is receiving employment income assistance;
   
2. their mother was less than age 20 when she had her first child;
   
3. the child or the child's family have had some contact with Child & Family Services.

When identifying where provincially licensed child care spaces are found it is apparent that despite the very high rate of at risk children in the low and low-mid SES areas of the city, these areas have no more child care spaces per 1000 children than do other areas of the city where the rates of at risk children are much lower (2006 data). Enriched pre-school experiences are important for the long term well-being of children. Between 2001-2006 the province funded an additional 2024 child care spaces across Manitoba, however, the program is designed to serve working mothers and depends on community groups which are organized to setup and run the child care centres, thus at-risk children often go underserved.

Furthermore, results from Brownell et al. (2008) , (Manitoba Child Health Atlas Update) suggest that there is little relationship between the SES and the provision of child care spaces, which is "not unexpected given that child care spaces have evolved largely in response to need based on parental employment, rather than the need for enriched early childhood development" (p.245).