Abstract
COVID-19 poses serious challenges to the health and safety of childcare providers, and these challenges were particularly acute in early 2022 during the first Omicron wave when vaccines were not available for children. Childcare providers work in environments where the recommended methods to minimize COVID-19 infection were often not possible to implement: children could not wear masks for extended periods and were not able to maintain physical distance. Under these pressures, Canada’s already-fragile childcare sector was strained, caregivers struggled, and existing deficiencies were exacerbated. As part of a larger quality assurance and improvement project examining the impacts of the pandemic on childcare in the Canadian prairie province of Manitoba, this paper reports on qualitative findings to make public health and policy recommendations for the childcare sector. Data were voluntarily provided by a sample of childcare providers between January 6–13, 2022. A thematic analysis of open-text responses was performed, finding: an urgent need for health and safety resources; a need for sustained support and guidelines; and an absence of value and respect. We also identified an emergent theme of gratitude, which was reflected by an overwhelming number of thanks to the project team for listening to the voices of childcare providers. We draw on our qualitative analysis to propose measures to improve public health and safety, funding, and infrastructure, as well as to underscore the importance of systematic data collection and evaluation to protect and support the essential childcare workforce through the COVID-19 pandemic and into the future.
Keywords
Introduction
In Canada, most parents rely on some form of out-of-home care for their children (Bushnik, 2006). In their cross-national review of childcare policies during the pandemic, Blum and Dobroti (2020) suggest that Canada stands out. In their view, among more than two dozen comparators, the Canadian experience “raised the importance of childcare for the economy and gender equality, putting it higher on the political agenda” (Blum and Dobrotić, 2020, S555). There is abundant reason to believe this is true at the national level: Canada has recently made unprecedented commitments to develop a national childcare framework, alongside historic investments (Government of Canada, 2017). Yet, in a federation like Canada, childcare is a sub-national responsibility. To fully understand the Canadian case requires finely-grained analysis at the provincial level where childcare is governed.
Manitoba, one of Canada’s ten provinces, has a historic reputation for strong early learning and childcare policy. In 1987, one researcher even declared that “Manitoba has the best system of training and daycare in North America” (Winnipeg Sun, 1987). If any province had a policy architecture that would be predicted to perform well under the stresses of COVID, smart bets would be placed on Manitoba, located in the geographic center of the country. Yet findings discussed in this paper confound this confidence.
Childcare providers work in environments where the recommended methods to minimize COVID-19 infection are often not possible to implement: during the time period we examined, as the Omicron variant arrived, children under age six were excluded from vaccination programs. Additionally, children could not wear masks for extended periods, and were not able to maintain physical distance. Nevertheless, caregivers were tasked with protecting children and their families, as well as themselves, while also promoting children’s social, emotional, physical, and cognitive development. Under the added weight of COVID-19-induced pressures, Manitoba’s childcare providers struggled. Our analysis reveals a childcare sector in desperate straits, with staff pleading for help.
Policy context
Early learning childcare policy in Manitoba is historically the responsibility of the Department of Families, a legacy of welfare approaches to early learning. Manitoba licenses two types of care: centers and family homes. As of March 2021, Manitoba had 718 centres (serving over 91% of the children receiving regulated care) and 443 licensed homes, most with between seven and eight children cared for by a single caregiver (Government of Manitoba, 2021). Together, both types of care provided 39,214 regulated and licensed spaces for the province’s 212,565 children aged 12 years or younger. Fewer than one in five Manitoba children (18.4%) has access to a licensed childcare space. There is an unknown amount of unlicensed care, on which no data are kept.
Manitoba childcare facilities operate on revenues derived from parent fees and government grants. Manitoba is one of a handful of provinces with standardized parent fees: $30 Canadian dollars (CAD) per day for infants under age two; $20.80 CAD for preschoolers aged two to five; and $10.30 CAD per day for most school-age children (ages six to twelve) during the school year. The 2016 Manitoba Early Learning and Child Care Commission found that a middle-income family with two children attending a licensed childcare center pays about 22% of their net family income in childcare fees (Flanagan and Beach, 2016). Overall, parent fee revenue is the biggest source of program funding, supplying about 60% of center budgets (Government of Manitoba, 2021).
Provincial childcare funding makes up approximately 40% of center revenue and operating grants have not increased since 2016 (Prentice, 2020). As real buying power fell under sustained provincial austerity, already thread-bare budgets were eroded. New inflationary pressures worsen the situation. Childcare is labor-intensive, and staffing consumes at least three-quarters, and often more, of a program’s budget (UNICEF, 2008). Frozen public funding has thus depressed caregiver wages, which have been low for decades. In Manitoba, childcare wages vary by qualification as well as experience in the field. The largest single category of providers has the lowest qualification: a Child Care Assistant (CCA) has a minimum of 40 hours of training. Recent data show the mean wage of a Manitoba CCA is $13.59 per hour, or $27,136 annually. The most highly educated caregiver is an Early Childhood Educator III, who has at least a 2-year post-secondary degree as well as a post-degree certificate. Median wages for an ECE III are $21.77/hour, or $42,470 per year (Government of Canada and Government of Manitoba, 2021). Statistics Canada observes that both the average and median annual income of childcare workers is “less than half of workers in all other occupations” (Uppal and Savage, 2021). The low pay and status of childcare staff in Canada is typical of the early learning and childcare sector in many countries (Brown et al., 2019).
As the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) observes, “early childhood education and care staff play the key role in ensuring healthy child development and learning” (OECD, 2012). Chronically low wages have negative effects on quality of care, as programs find it challenging or impossible to hire and retain trained staff. Despite strong regulations for good ratios of qualified staff to children, 30% of Manitoba childcare centers persistently fail to meet the standards (Office of the Auditor General of Manitoba, 2013). Childcare is amongst the most female-dominated workforces, as 96% of staff are women (Uppal and Savage, 2021). Childcare providers are more likely than others in the Canadian labor force to be younger, to be racialized, and/or to be an immigrant or non-permanent resident (Uppal and Savage, 2021). Given the crucial role that early childhood educators play in children’s lives and the determination of quality, instability in the labor force is of paramount concern.
In 2017, the Canadian federal government launched the Multilateral Early Learning and Child Care Framework, declaring childcare “one of the best investments that governments can make to strengthen Canada’s society and economy” (Government Of Canada, 2017). In subsequent communiqués, it announced its intention to increase quality, accessibility, affordability, flexibility, and inclusivity in early learning and childcare. Budget 2021 committed over $30 billion over 5 years, promising millions of dollars to provinces which accepted the Framework’s principles and who signed accords (Government of Canada, 2020). By early 2022, almost every province and territory had developed an agreement with the national government.
Manitoba signed its agreement in August 2021. Under the agreement, Canada promised Manitoba over $1.2 billion between 2021/2022 and 2025/2026. In return, Manitoba accepted national objectives of increased affordability, better access, and increased quality (Government of Canada and Government of Manitoba, 2021).
In light of this context, it would be reasonable to believe that childcare would have been a priority in Manitoba’s COVID-19 response. As we show below, this was not the case. As in most of Canada, childcare was ignored or made marginal in public health planning. Weakly institutionalized and with fragile links to the public sector, childcare was largely treated as an afterthought. Limited public funding and reliance on parent fees made childcare unsustainable when services were ordered to close as the first wave of COVID-19 hit in March 2020. The lack of public funding created financial stress and uncertainty across Canada, “even in provinces offering robust support” (Friendly et al., 2021: 42).
One overview of Canadian childcare during the COVID-19 pandemic found the “pandemic created chaos for childcare service providers, hardship for families, and anxiety for equality-seeking women” (Friendly et al., 2021: 43). As enrollments fell for complex reasons, including parents making alternate arrangements or dropping out due to losing their jobs, additional pressures were experienced by an already precarious childcare sector (Macdonald and Friendly et al., 2021).
Economist Jim Stanford observed a “financial and operating crisis” in Canada’s under-resourced system. A combination of outright closures, reduced enrollments, and increased costs from COVID-19-related safety protocols created “enormous financial pressures on many childcare centers” (Stanford, 2020: 5). The gendered impacts were unmistakable: the female-dominated childcare workforce was suffering, and it was mothers of young children who experienced the most dramatic pandemic-induced job losses and slowest recovery (Fuller and Qian, 2021; Scott, 2021). The Royal Bank of Canada (RBC, 2020) warned that the cascade of gendered pandemic-exacerbated inequities threatened decades of feminist progress, and advised that “policies to address childcare will be crucial” to restoring economic activity. Armine Yalnizyan summarized the challenge: “There will be no recovery without a she-covery, and no she-covery without childcare” (Yalnizyan, 2020).
While it will take years to fully understand the effects of the pandemic on gender relations in Canada, it is clear that the experiences of childcare workers will be central. In her study of childcare providers in western British Columbia, Smith (2022) found widespread challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic. Caregivers poignantly described how their health and safety concerns were disregarded while their contributions were undervalued and unrecognized (Smith, 2022). Smith argues that the Canadian case provides “an opportunity to ask how pandemic childcare policy affected (mostly women) care providers and what can be learned in terms of informing gender-based policy-responses” (2021, p. 4). In the following sections, we lay out what we learned from Manitoba’s childcare providers, using qualitative insights to develop public health and related policy recommendations to protect childcare staff during the pandemic and beyond.
Methods, design and team
The qualitative findings we report are part of a larger quality improvement initiative, titled “Early Learning and Child Care Survey - Manitoba (ELCC-MB).” This survey was motivated by concerns raised by childcare providers in Manitoba during the first Omicron (Omicron BA.1) wave of the pandemic in early January 2022. For context, as the first Omicron variant arrived during the ever-evolving pandemic, vaccines were not available for children under age five (approval was received 9 months later, in August 2022). A mask mandate was in place for childcare settings, but not for public settings where behavior was unrestricted. Infection mandated 10 days of isolation. During this period, case counts were rising, hospitalizations jumped 51% from the previous week, over 12,700 cases provincial cases were reported, rapid testing access was virtually non-existent, and booster doses were only available to those over age 18 years .
As a time-sensitive public health quality improvement initiative, this survey was not considered to need review by the Health Research Ethics Board of the University of Manitoba. Canadian research on human subjects is governed by national policy, the Tri-Council Policy Statement -Ethical Conduct for Research Involving Humans, TCPS 2, (2018) (Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), & Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Of Canada (SSHRC), 2018). TCPS 2 Article 2.5 specifies that quality assurance studies do not fall under the scope of the policy. Through its senior staff person, the University of Manitoba Health Research Ethics Board confirmed the interpretation of this policy. All responses were anonymous, we rigorously guarded the confidentiality of participants, and our analysis and discussion maintain the confidentiality of those who freely volunteered health and safety information about early learning and childcare settings for young children.
The quality improvement initiative was first developed by two University of Manitoba science researchers, both mothers of young children, who were alarmed at the lack of information about COVID-19 caseloads in childcare facilities and who were concerned about a lack of support for childcare providers. Together, they launched a simple vehicle to collate information and recommendations. Their ad-hoc project, which the media described as research led by “two tired moms,” received widespread attention (Macintosh, 2022). Interest in the project grew rapidly, and the research team expanded as four colleagues offered assistance. The now six-person multi-disciplinary team includes experts in quantitative and qualitative research, across three faculties, and six departments, only two of whom had worked together before. In brief, this was a team that came together to support quality improvements for the ELCC sector.
Data were collected through an English-language, online, anonymous cross-sectional questionnaire drawn from a convenience sample of staff from childcare facilities in Manitoba, between January 6-13, 2022. No honoraria were offered for participation. The survey was circulated by email through the Manitoba Child Care Association, a province-wide professional association. It was also promoted on Twitter (the initial post by @acgerstein was retweeted 147 times with 56,386 impressions), via regional Facebook childcare groups, and by local and national news media.
In addition to quantitative data collection, respondents were invited to address two open-ended questions: “What additional resources would you like from the government to assist you in keeping staff and students safe from COVID-19?” and “Is there anything else you would like to tell us?” Responses were provided in open text boxes in the online survey.
Qualitative analysis was undertaken on open text responses extracted from the database. Data were considered against qualitative results to closed-ended questions. We drew on thematic content approaches to identify patterns of meaning that shared a core concept or idea (Braun et al., 2018). As recommended, the team first became familiar with the data, then worked independently to produce themes/codes. In consultation with the team, themes were reviewed, refined and named, and the data were then revisited and recoded. Consistent themes were identified and refined until all researchers agreed that theoretical saturation had been reached. In presenting our analysis below, we correct quotations for spelling, and occasionally for grammar to ensure clarity.
We received a total of 365 responses, over 80% of which represented center-based programs. Respondents were asked how many staff and children were in their facilities; the cumulative number was over 5000 staff and more than 20,000 children. Responses were anonymous and self-reported, and there was no attempt to verify numbers reported. Nevertheless, survey respondents represented a substantial proportion of childcare programs in the province.
Discussion of qualitative themes
Strong themes emerged from the participants’ responses to open-ended questions: an urgent need for health and safety resources, including personal protective equipment (PPE) and access to rapid tests; a need for support, especially wage support, and public health guidance; and concerns over lack of respect. These three themes formed a self-enforcing circle, as lack of respect was cause and consequence of poor communication and weak public health guidance, compounded by inadequate resources. As we read through dozens of expressions of thanks to the research team for collecting data, a fourth theme emerged as the analytic team engaged with the reciprocal obligations engendered by gratitude. These linked themes are elaborated below.
A need for health and safety resources
Safety concerns dominated our findings, with staff expressing anguish about how to keep themselves, children, and families healthy. Virtually every respondent expressed a need for more resources to ensure the safety of childcare providers, children, and their extended families.
Nearly all participants spoke of a need for additional personal protective equipment (PPE), which they saw as a government responsibility. During earlier waves of COVID, facilities were expected to manage their own PPE needs. About 12 months in, when the province began offering small amounts of safety equipment, the results were disappointing and inadequate. We were told, for example, that when the provincial government provided masks, they were broken or expired and had to be recalled:
“In the beginning, it was up to each individual centre to ensure staff had masks, at this time the government were not providing. Then once they were able to provide masks, they sent out ones which were outdated and were then recalled.”
Consistent with the changing scientific and government recommendations regarding mask usage, the participants reported evolving needs for PPE. By late 2021, N95 and KN95 masks were needed to adequately protect the staff and children from the Omicron variant. Quality PPE was described as the way to protect staff and families, especially due to the staffing demands and high isolation rates in their facility:
“We are in need of better masks to better protect both staff and families (since it does not look like our centre will be closing any time soon even though half - 12 out of 24 - staff are away isolating).”
In addition to calls for better masks, participants highlighted a continued need for sanitization and cleaning supplies. This required relief from other duties to accommodate the time demands of cleaning: “We receive NO additional time to devote to cleaning or rearranging rooms and trying to keep germs at bay.”
An equally urgent need was access to rapid antigen tests. At the time of the survey, only non-vaccinated staff could access rapid tests. Blocking access to rapid antigen tests was viewed as a barrier to a safe and healthy environment for staff and children alike. In rural areas of the province, in particular, the need was directly related to long testing wait times, even before the emergence of the Omicron variant. Long testing delays meant staff shortages, as childcare providers could not return to work until results were in hand:
Unanimously, staff spoke about wanting to protect the children in their facilities, and the importance of being vaccinated. Rapid testing policy was seen as having the unintended perverse effect of leaving people feeling punished for following guidelines, since fully vaccinated staff, could not access tests although unvaccinated staff could. Testing was patently needed because staff have extensive daily exposure from working with an age group that cannot be vaccinated:
“Our centre has also not been able to get a hold of any rapid tests due to everyone being vaccinated. It is almost like our program is being penalized for following the rules and regulations being imposed by public health and the government.”
“I hope we have emergency Rapid test kit even [if] all the staff are fully vaccinated. Still we are taking care of unvaccinated children. Most of them suddenly have symptoms in the middle of the day. Parents usually said probably just a flu or part of teething coz of their family is sick. Parents can’t afford to be off to work for a week or more if their kids have mild flu symptoms.”
Lastly, a small group of participants described how COVID enters their facilities through unvaccinated children who are asymptomatic or have mild symptoms, or who are not able to express how they are feeling. Some had to temporarily close their doors after staff were exposed to infants and other children who were ill. Where programs remained open despite COVID exposures, several caregivers expressed guilt:
“I had a child that tested positive from a PCR [polymerase chain reaction] test. I continued to work, as I didn’t have symptoms, as the government tells us to do. Then 3 days later I felt sick. Public Health is no longer contacting child care centres. If you have questions you need to call public health (3 hour plus wait). If I had an antigen test on hand, I may have been able to test before symptoms and not have shared as much virus with the other children I cared for. Besides now I’m sick and am not physically able to go sit in a car for hours to pick up an antigen test. Now I have probably infected at least 3 more families with children under 4 years as well as a 3 month old infant (I sure hope not).”
More financial support and better guidelines
The second theme was a desperate need for more financial support and better guidelines. Childcare staff reported feeling both financially unprotected, and wanting better and more timely communication, both from Public Health and the provincial department of Early Learning and Child Care.
Provincial operating funding for childcare centers has been frozen since 2016, and this had negatively impacted childcare facilities well before the pandemic. Participants repeatedly told us they were chronically underpaid, which harmed their physical and mental health, as well as their ability to commit their best to the field:
“Child care workers are already living at the brink of, or just hovering above, poverty. I cannot afford to miss work and this pandemic cannot afford for sick people to keep showing up to work. Stress alone weakens the immune system and child care workers were dealing with an overwhelming amount of stress before the pandemic (from staff shortages, inadequate funding from the province, parents who are required to pay more for childcare). No-one I work with is showing up as their best and it’s really fucking sad.”
Participants spoke of struggles ranging from limited sick time, loss of parent fees when children were unable to attend, and reduced ability to care for children while staff were sick or isolating, each of which had negative impacts on revenue:
“We are currently at risk of having to shut down or not allow parents to bring their children due to staffing shortages. These shortages are directly related to wages and the staffing shortages we are experiencing province wide.”
Participants also spoke of a desperate need for financial support to cover lost revenue from parent fees and for sick pay when staff were required to isolate. The financial and emotional stress, on top of poor pay, were reasons why many childcare staff indicated they were planning to leave the sector:
“I am unfortunately leaving childcare soon due to excessive stress and unfair wages after 12 years of loving my career. ECEs deserve better pay for all of the physical, emotional, social, and cognitive stress we are put through in our workplace. We love what we do but if it doesn’t pay the rent we can’t stay.”
In addition to needing financial support (better pay and sick pay), most raised concerns around the poor quality and terrible timing of public health and related information and guidelines they received. We heard that the province has “not provided timely or proactive communication” to the childcare sector when they changed provincial restrictions and guidelines. Staff voiced frustration and confusion with ever-changing information, stating that lack of communication was “seriously impeding our ability to offer the safest possible environments for our children and staff.” Other participants noted that they need clarification on how to safely continue providing childcare during COVID surges:
“We have centres and families to serve, businesses to operate and we are expected to make these big decisions without or with minimal support. Misinformation is given from PH, Health Links and media. Families, staff and Directors are frustrated. We need more support, more guidance and more compassion.”
“Most importantly better disbursement of information and guidance from public health. We often cannot get a hold of government staff to get information quickly, or there is no info even available. We were most recently told staff do not even isolate when exposed to positive children in their room. This seems ludicrous as the children are in very close proximity to our faces during the day and are unvaccinated and not wearing masks. If the cohort of children must isolate after exposure, it makes no sense that staff continue to come to work and even work in other cohorts potentially exposing other children!”
The need for clearer, more timely information also reflected a desire to be respected by the provincial government. Participants asked to be involved in decision-making and in the creation of guidelines for their sector. Staff were baffled that they lacked access to government representatives, and were forced to rely on news reports or seek answers as individuals.
An absence of value and respect
Equally visible in almost all comments was an affective theme: knowing the sector should be valued and respected, yet feeling the opposite message from government. Participants spoke of feeling unappreciated and unrecognized for the important role they play in ensuring the safety of children and in supporting the economy. An absence of value and respect was evident in respondents’ comments around health and safety resources, and also in the need for better support and guidance. Nevertheless, the frequency with which staff expressed feelings of being unappreciated and overlooked warranted a theme of its own.
One participant told us they were “tired of being the gum on the bottom of the government’s shoe.” Through this quotation, it is clear that the sector felt underappreciated and yearned to be respected for their work. Participants spoke of feeling undervalued, despite working “110% in their jobs for the families and children over the past two years of the pandemic.” They noted that their job puts them at high risk for COVID-19 exposure and makes them responsible for keeping a vulnerable group safe. Childcare providers observe that they are not recognized for the essential service they provide to children, families, and the economy:
“Our government doesn’t care about childcare at all. They need us to work to keep the economy going, yet we are not compensated - just expected to show up and carry on even though we work with the most vulnerable - unvaccinated children. We are at risk every day.”
Participants reported that their experiences of being disrespected and under-valued were longstanding:
“Typical mentality towards child care across the country has once again put us on the back burner, concerning our needs as well as the children’s needs. We are one of the only groups looking after the only ones who cannot get vaccinated, who are most at risk and yet we hear nothing, anywhere about what is being done to help us as caregivers keep these children safe.”
“We are expected to care for Manitoba’s most vulnerable population - children who cannot be vaccinated - with no additional resources. We’re only considered essential as an afterthought, and so many of us are struggling. How many ECEs are considering leaving the sector altogether because of the lack of respect from the MB government?”
Some laid the blame squarely on gender bias:
“the fact that this predominantly female-composed workforce is constantly being ignored from both a provincial government standpoint and public health is appalling. The lack of respect being shown is outrageous.”
Several participants compared the treatment of childcare to that of the public education system, noting the incongruence of COVID-19 protocols and funding for schools. This further intensified feelings of being undervalued:
“Closing schools and redoing their ventilation systems, providing extra funding, giving rapid tests, upping wages and much more while COMPLETELY neglecting those of us who work with children who cannot be masked or vaccinated while not having raised our wages in YEARS is a total slap in the face to ECE/CCA.”
“I think this government has to acknowledge child care in every update. They need to let the public know that if it weren’t for us the economy would not be moving. They cannot just keep giving money to the schools and leave child care out.”
Lastly, several participants noted that numerous staff have left early childhood education over the past 2 years, and that this has significantly contributed to staffing shortages, which increases the stress and burden on remaining staff. Others shared that feeling constantly unvalued and disrespected by the government, along with a lack of fair compensation, are factors motivating them to leave the field. As one experienced educator told us, “I am looking for a way to leave the field after 30 years . . . . I would not encourage anyone to enter this field right now. . . The sector is a mess.”
Another explained the cumulative effects of a long history of inadequate support:
“I’ve been in the field for over 25 years and have always felt a lack of acknowledgment in this sector. This pandemic the government has shown so much more disrespect for our sector. Forcing us to be open, threatening operating grants (in the beginning), lack of support of hearing our struggles and seeing what we need to keep our staff feeling safe. Many are leaving the field. When they have thanked our field at one point in this it meant nothing, that was meant more for media.”
Numerous participants made a call for help. One wrote poignantly: “Please help us, we are burnt out, we are all struggling.” Participants feel disrespected, underpaid, and experience high work demands with little clear guidance. Their responses demonstrate deep feelings of helplessness and exhaustion:
“ELCC had a shaky foundation to begin with and now with the pandemic, the foundation has fully crumbled affecting our sector negatively EVERY, SINGLE DAY. Most Directors are at their breaking point. I have not taken any holidays in two years because of the expectations that have been forced upon us. There’s this expectation that we have always done whatever has been asked of us and that we must continue to do so but it just isn’t humanly possible.”
Emergent theme: Gratitude
The linked themes of childcare staff being unprotected, unsupported, and disrespected were clearly evident strongly across the open-ended responses. Repeatedly, respondents begged for help. As researchers in a range of health and social science disciplines, we could readily see how the provincial policy architecture was profoundly inadequate even before the disruption of the pandemic, and then was worsened by it. But we were also struck by something else: the participants’ gratitude.
As much as one-third of the 365 responses we analyzed contained a personal note of thanks and appreciation. There were many occurrences of “thank you” and several “thank you for. . .” The sheer volume of gratitude was far higher than in any other project in which we have been involved. Although we each observed the phenomenon, it did not emerge as analytically important until we moved into preparing to write up results. At that point, it became clear we needed to tackle how expressions of thanks were linked to the needs of the childcare workforce, and how it lay behind our growing sense of ethical engagement with the providers whose data we collected.
An emerging area of research is the “gratitude cycle” that occurs in online communities (Makri and Turner, 2020). As Makri and Turner (2020) observe, both cognitive and emotional reactions are behind gratitude. Gratitude is an important factor in social interactions, and has been found to be a motivator for participation and action in online communities, as well as elsewhere (Yang et al., 2017). In a simple insight, Makri and Turner (2020) suggest that when a beneficiary expresses and acknowledges gratitude, it can motivate the benefactor—who may then undertake other kind acts for members of the community.
After self-reflection, we recognized that we have become involved in a gratitude cycle. Childcare providers need their sector to be better understood and better resourced, and staff need to be respected and valued. The appreciation showered on the research team directly increased our motivation to share participants’ voices further, in a reinforcing cycle. While we maintained the primary quality improvement goal of the project (namely to rapidly share findings with the current provincial administration and community members), we also recognized that we had an additional goal: to demonstrate and signal our commitment and respect to childcare providers. Their gratitude for the survey and the efforts they put into sharing their experiences elicited an atypically strong sense of responsibility among the research team to ensure the voices of providers are widely heard through further dissemination of the survey findings and exploration of themes discovered in this snapshot in future studies.
Conclusion and recommendations: How to protect the childcare sector
Our qualitative analysis revealed both a short and a longer-term crisis in the Manitoba childcare sector. When it comes to public health and the safety of young children and their childcare providers, best practices indicate a clear path forward. During the pandemic, the sector needed to be provided with the highest quality masks (N95 or similar) and immediate access to unrestricted rapid antigen tests. In a context of inadequate support and poor communication, the recommendations are equally evident. The childcare sector needed increased funding for staff wages, including sick pay, retroactive hazard pay to compensate their role as essential workers during the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as funding increases to cover increased costs associated with staff absences and increased cleaning. It also needed clear information from Public Health on measures such as isolation requirements and when parents could or could not send their children. This would include resources for childcare facilities as well as clear information for parents.
As a part of a sustainable funding model, and because the pandemic is not over, we recommend widespread grants be made available for ventilation improvements in childcare facilities with a short application process, including rapid money available to acquire interim measures like high-efficiency particulate absorbing (HEPA) air filtration, Corsi-Rosenthal Air Filter Boxes (or similar devices to improve air quality). Just as public education is increasingly able to access infrastructure grants to improve ventilation, so should childcare programs.
Yet, it will take culture change to override a long legacy of disrespecting women’s childcare work, in order for public policy to position childcare as an essential service and to ensure it is adequately resourced going forward. An urgent first step is better public funding, with predictable annual increases that permit much-needed wage increases. An additional marker of respect would be the establishment of a partnership strategy that brings childcare providers and leaders to public tables to develop pandemic and post-pandemic policy. An equally important marker would be systematic attention to data collection and monitoring, and a long-term agenda for research and evaluation. Our ad-hoc quality improvement project was made necessary because data collection and monitoring was, and remains, currently a low or non-existent government priority.
Across Canada and elsewhere, many jurisdictions have abandoned infection reporting mandates, and this creates a fraught future. With a shift to individual responsibilities and a retreat by governments—too often rationalized through simplistic appeals to a naïve notion of “freedom”—the childcare sector risks being further ignored. Early childhood care and education programs are good for children and their families. What is now also clear is the economic importance of the sector. Economic analysis has shown how crucial childcare is in permitting the economy to function, for the continued operation of essential services of all kinds, and for facilitating women’s labor force activity. Since the quality of care received by children depends on the adults who provide it, we must protect and support the essential childcare workforce through the COVID-19 pandemic and into the future.
