On-site daycare helps keep students in school

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When the Sakewew high school childcare centre opened its doors last September, its goal was to encourage young parents to stay in school by providing them with accessible and affordable childcare. Funded by both the federal and provincial government, the facility was created in response to the needs identified by students.

"Feedback we were getting from students was that childcare was one of the barriers for them attending, for furthering their education. In response to that, we decided we would do our best to create a childcare facility that was right on the site of the school," said Herb Sutton, the superintendent of instruction at the North West Catholic School Division, one of the partners that govern Sakewew High, along with the Battleford School Division and the Battlefords Tribal Council. The school, which incorporates Aboriginal culture into its curriculum, was established in August 2002.

In addition to childcare, the centre also provides transportation to and from school for both parent and child. Currently, 11 parents are using the facility, which can accommodate up to 22 infants and toddlers.

"I think it's just been excellent. I've got some of my parents, all last year they had to drop out of school because they had no proper childcare. They didn't have reliable childcare plus they had no way of getting here. Some of them live across town. They wanted their children right here with them," said Marian Atcheynum, executive director of the childcare centre. "A lot of my moms breastfeed. So you can't breastfeed a baby when you live across town and you're walking. So at least they're right here. They come here on their breaks. They're here with their babies."

In addition to providing child minding while parents are in class, parenting and nutrition classes are also offered.

"We've got the community health nurse coming, we've got another lady coming in from public health. We're just starting a 'Nobody's Perfect' training for the parents. We did a little bit of cooking on our own. They also get all their immunization done here. A lot of them were behind when we started. They got their babies caught up," Atcheynum said.

Whether the childcare centre has had a significant effect on school attendance remains to be seen. Currently, figures for the number of parents staying in school before and after the facility was created are unavailable.

"It's not something that we've been collecting data on up to this time. We have some preliminary stats to show attendance rates and we're doing some studying of that at the childcare centre, the number of children, for example, that are registered and the number of children that attend. That data has not been collated yet either, because we're just starting to track that a little bit," said Sutton.

"Part of our challenge is that the school has only been opened for a year and a half. As an educator, our work has been primarily in trying to get the school open and operating and functioning as a school because a year and a half ago or two years ago, there was nothing, no building, no teachers, no students, no anything. So we've been on a fast track up to this point, just trying to get that in progress and we haven't put a lot of time into studying this at this point anyway."

Even though students have access to on-site childcare facilities, Sutton said some young parents may still not be attending class because they are dealing with other personal issues that extend beyond the need for childcare.

"It's a program that the parents haven't been used to having up to this point, so it's a bit of an adjustment there. But I think the experience that we've had thus far indicates to us that there are very, very complex needs that these youth are dealing with. And one piece of it is childcare, but that's not the only thing that's affecting them not coming to school on a regular basis. We don't have a definitive answer on what all those other factors are andwhat we might do. We're still working through that," said Sutton.