Alice Taylor
Excerpts From Oral History Interview
Alice Taylor lives and works in Prince Edward Island. On December 11, 2000, when Alice was 57, she was interviewed by telephone by Debra Mayer, who recorded the following conversation. They talked about a number of matters of concern, including the relationship of staffing and quality of care, and how concerns for staff and training relate to advocacy. The following excerpts come from that interview, which lasted for over an hour.
listen to clip 1 1:41 854KB
listen to clip 2 1:47 904KB
"Currently there is a requirement that at least two people in any centre need to have early childhood education and training. They need to have a diploma; that's the legislation. What we're finding is that the field here is in crisis. Previously most centres had all trained staff, even though the requirement was that they had two. We did have in excess of 80% of all people who were working in child care in the province with their early childhood training or an equivalent training. Now [the] unofficial estimate is that it's running between 50% and 60%. So we are actually losing people in droves in this field, in this province. What's happening is that the Child Care Facilities Board, the board that oversees the regulations in this province, is making exceptions all over the place because there aren't any trained people to hire!"
"What needs to happen are a number of things. Actually what I'd like to see happen is this: for somebody to have the courage to sort of throw it all in the centre of the table and say, 'Okay, we've got the system; we've got lots of people who are supporting children and families; but we don't have any coordination of any of it." We need to start from the bottom up, really look at who does what, and how can we support each other? [We have talked to the Minister] about getting a comprehensive early childhood system in place. This system would look at health professionals and other professionals, such as psychologists and early childhood educators and whoever is involved with children and families. We need better wages and working conditions. We need money in the early childhood field. And we need that fast. But we also need supports in the field. I don't think that money alone is going to solve our problem. I think people have been struggling so long, scratching out a subsistence living, that we need support services in the field to help people get back on track."
