Nanaimo's 2025 State of the Child Report suggests the region is experiencing a childcare deficit, with not nearly enough spaces to meet the need.
The report was undertaken by the Nanaimo Early Years Partnership, comprised of members from Nanaimo Ladysmith Public Schools, Island Health, City of Nanaimo and Vancouver Island University as well as Indigenous, multicultural and children's welfare organizations. It examined challenges in local services, using statistics collected from 2020-24.
Cheryl Booth, Nanaimo Child Development Centre executive director, said childcare "is in crisis in the community."
"We wanted to share that we are a really fast-growing community in Nanaimo and we are not meeting the needs of this growth," Booth said. "It's getting harder to find quality childcare and I think the government is doing a lot to get people to work in the sector, there's a lot of grants coming in to support, but it falls short. It's very hard to meet the needs."
Taking data from the University of British Columbia's early development instrument's latest data reporting period, 4,998 childcare spaces were available for 17,120 children, meaning 29 spaces for every 100 children.
The report also cited the 2023 Nanaimo-Ladysmith Childhood Experiences Questionnaire, in which out of 453 participants surveyed on early learning and childcare challenges, 76 per cent reported that finding childcare spaces was a challenge.
Challenges included space availability for 81 per cent of participants, cost for 59 per cent, a wait list for 56 per cent, limited hours of operation for 38 per cent, and the quality of staff, activities and the space for 33 per cent.
"This report sort of highlights we're creating high-stress situations for parents who don't have child care, but then there's other huge factors affecting kids," Booth said.
Headway has been made with more spaces opening at elementary schools, yet even with this increase, she said the numbers suggest it still isn't sufficient to handle the current population of children in the community.
"There is a lot happening to try to support the system, but as the fastest-growing community it's just continuing to fall short."
Availability of the spaces for children in all age groups was an issue noted in the report, as well as inclusivity for those with complex needs. Due to the shortage, Booth said children with disabilities and behavioural issues are being kicked out of existing daycares.
"Daycares are stressed, they don't have enough people to support a child with extra needs or higher vulnerability so our kids are just getting tossed … It's really hard for us," she said. "We need to attract really qualified people into the sector and we need a lot more childcare settings so that it's easier to integrate children with extra needs."
She pointed to inadequate wages in the childcare sector as a contributor to some of the issues.
"People 'hop.' They go into it for a little bit and then they move into something else, but it is not always a living wage in my opinion."
While childcare was a major feature of the State of the Child Report, other sections detailed child vulnerabilities, including that 32.9 per cent of children in the school district are vulnerable in one or more aspects of the developmental scale. These include emotional maturity, social competence, physical health and well-being, language and cognitive development as well as communication skills and general knowledge.
"These pieces here really do need to be built into early learning. Some centres do this really well, but our community is at risk. If you compare our [numbers] to the rest of B.C., we have a higher level of vulnerability," Booth said.
