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CITY OF VANCOUVER ADMINISTRATIVE REPORT |
Date: |
October 20, 2003 | |
Author: |
Carol Ann Young | |
Phone No.: |
604-871-6042 | |
RTS No.: |
3617 | |
CC File No.: |
2402 | |
Meeting Date: |
November 4, 2003 |
TO: |
Vancouver City Council |
FROM: |
Director of Social Planning |
SUBJECT: |
Approval of Availability of Child Care Spaces Subsidy Grant |
RECOMMENDATION
A. THAT Council approve 33 Child Care Subsidy Grants totalling $162,316 as listed in Appendix A, with conditions as noted; source of funds: 2003 Inner City Subsidy grant allocation.
B. THAT Council approve the expenditure of an $800 grant to Westcoast Child Care Resource Centre for the translation of a Parent Permission form into Chinese, Punjabi, Spanish and Vietnamese as part of the grant evaluation; source of funds: 2003 Operating Budget.
C. THAT Council approve the expenditure of $3,300 grant to Collingwood Neighbourhood House to host a financial sustainability workshop for all Inner City Child Care Programs; source of funds: 2003 City-Wide/Administration grant allocation.
D. THAT Council approve the expenditure of $3,300 grant to Kiwassa Neighbourhood House to host a continuous Quality Improvement workshop for all Child Care Enhancement Grant recipients with grant conditions to develop a Quality Improvement plan; source of funds; 2003 Operating Budget.
GENERAL MANAGER'S COMMENTS
The General Manager of Community Services RECOMMENDS approval of A, B, C and D.
COUNCIL POLICY
Council established the annual Civic Childcare Grants Program on October 23, 1990, as part of the Civic Child Care Strategy to support the viability, accessibility and quality of child care services
PURPOSE
This report makes recommendation for the allocation of the additional $162,250 Inner City Child Care Grant funding. Funding is intended to mitigate impacts of provincial child care subsidy policy changes and subsequent vacancies in child care programs in the Inner City. In addition, the subsidy is intended to assist low income families return to or retain their child care spaces in licensed programs, as many families have experienced a loss or reduced amount in their provincial subsidies making child care unaffordable. Recommendations for 33 child care grants supporting 527 spaces are proposed and set out in Appendix A. Staff will report back to Council in early 2004 on the results of this grant for funding in subsequent years.
In addition, this report makes recommendations for the funding of three additional grants. The first grant of $800 is for the translation costs of the Parent Permission form into four languages, which is part of the grant evaluation process. The second grant is to host a financial sustainability workshop for Inner City Child Care programs, to look at other ways of funding services, given provincial cut backs. The third grant is to provide a continuous Quality Improvement workshop for Enhancement Grant recipients for whom developing a continuous Quality Improvement plan was a grant condition. Funds for these three grants would come from unspent funds in Child Care Grant Categories from the 2003 Operating Budget.
BACKGROUND
CHILD CARE SUSTAINABILITY
Following the Standing Committee of Council on City Services and Budgets Meeting on July 24, 2003, Council approved additional funding to the Childcare Grant program of $162,250 annually to be directed to grants for improving child care affordability and stabilization under the Inner City Grant program, subject to evaluation and report back in early 2004; source of funds for 2003 to be from Contingency Reserve. Subject to the report back, funding for 2004 and subsequent years of $162,250 would be added to the Civic Grants Budget without offset.
As a result of a number of provincial policy changes and funding cuts to child care over the past three years, child care organizations across the City have seen a drop in the number of subsidized families. Inner City programs reported drops in enrolment and/or the replacement of low and moderate income families with full fee paying families as a result of subsidy policy changes. In an effort to ensure affordability and accessibility of quality care for low income families, Council approved a child care subsidy grant for Inner City programs. The funds are intended to eliminate current vacancies, provide a fee subsidy to 20% of the licensed spaces in Inner City program to increase affordability and to retain and return families with a limited ability to pay full fees.
A grant of $25 per space per month for 11 months was proposed to target to approximately 250 vacancies. In addition, 20% of the approximately 1,700 spaces identified in the Inner City grant applications in May, 2003, were to also receive a $25 per month grant.
City staff held two meetings with Inner City providers to determine what programs should be given priority and how best to support programs. Preschool and out-of-school care were identified as the programs most in need, with 3 to 5 care and infant/toddler as a second priority. In addition to the subsidy, participants strongly recommended that the City fund a follow-up workshop on financial sustainability for Inner City Child Care programs, similar to the one funded in previous years for the multi-service organizations. This would allow programs to examine the feasibility of developing other funding strategies for long term sustainability. Staff are recommending $3,300 to fund this workshop. Collingwood Neighbourhood House would host this workshop. Staff are recommending Collingwood as it was one of the three lead organizations in the first sustainability series.
In September, a modified grant application was sent out to all applicants of the May, 2003, Inner City Grants. Programs were asked to report June and September enrolment numbers and identify how many subsidies they required per program. Programs were also asked to provide a copy of their organization's subsidy policy and agree to participate in the evaluation process of the grant. As part of the evaluation, a Parent Permission form was also included in the grant package. This would identify and provide parents with the opportunity to voluntarily participate in the evaluation. Programs identified the need for the Permission forms to be translated into four other languages, including Chinese, Punjabi, Spanish and Vietnamese, in order to serve families utilizing the grant funding.
Thirty-three grant applications were received, representing 1,417 licensed spaces. Three recipients of the Inner City Grant did not apply for subsidies. Applications indicated 245 vacancies. The most vacancies were in the out-of-school care (109), preschool (70) and 3 to 5 care (66). Some programs did indicate a reduction in the number of preschool sessions being offered due to low enrolments. Given that there are slightly less grant requests than initially budgeted for, staff are proposing that the monthly grant amount be increased from $25 to $28 per month.
QUALITY
Finally, the last grant request for $3,300 would provide Quality Improvement workshop for child care organizations that received the Child Care Enhancement Grant in May. These programs were required to produce a Quality Improvement Plan as a condition of granting. A number of organizations have expressed the need for some additional training in this area. To meet this demand, staff are proposing a $3,300 grant to Kiwassa Neighbourhood House to host a workshop series on continuous Quality Improvement. Given that Kiwassa Neighbourhood House was the lead agency in the three-year Quality pilot, staff felt that they were in the best position to host the workshop series.
FINANCIAL IMPLICATIONS
Staff are recommending approval of grant requests for 527 spaces @ $28 per month for 11 months, totalling $162,316. Council has recommended that $162,250 would be added to the Civic Grant Budget without offset, subject to the report back in 2004. In addition, staff are recommending approval of $800 for translation of the Parent Permission form for the grant evaluation process and two grants totalling $3,300 each, to be approved for the financial sustainability workshop and the Quality Improvement workshop, respectively. This would leave $78 remaining unspent.
Program |
2003 Proposed |
2003 Recommended |
Program Enhancement |
$125,480 |
$123,077 |
Inner City Grant* |
$255,820 |
$258,219 |
City Wide/Administration |
$325,500 |
$325,360 |
Inner City Subsidy |
$162,250 |
$162,316 |
Total Allocation |
$869,050 |
$868,972 |
Total Remaining |
$78 |
* Program Stabilization, Program Development and Research and Innovation Grant funds for 2003 were allocated to Inner City Grant.
