Parent guides
The answers, with the source attached.
Most of what a parent needs to know about child care in British Columbia is real, public and written down. It is also spread across a regulation schedule, a health authority's PDFs and four government pages that each explain one piece. These guides put it in one place, in plain words, with a link to the original beside every number.
8 chapters
Licensed child care in BC
The rules every licensed centre in the province has to follow, and how to check that a centre is following them. Ratios, qualifications, space, health, inspections and complaints.
Read the guide
6 chapters
What child care costs in BC
Three government programs sit between a centre's fee and what a family actually pays. How each one works, how they stack, and how to work out your own number.
Read the guide
6 chapters
Raising a bilingual child
What the paediatric and speech-language evidence actually says about young children learning two languages, and what to do about it at home and when choosing care.
Read the guide
6 chapters
Starting daycare
What happens between accepting a space and the day your child walks in without looking back. The paperwork, the settling-in period, the goodbye, the bag, the nap, and the first illness.
Read the guide
6 chapters
Early learning and play
Play looks like nothing is being taught. This guide explains the provincial framework behind it, the five kinds of development a licensed centre is legally required to support, and how to tell a strong programme from a busy one.
Read the guide
6 chapters
Choosing a daycare
The decision before the decision. How to find centres you can actually enrol in, how to tell on a tour whether a place runs well, which questions reveal more than they look like they do, and how to compare the finalists without second-guessing yourself.
Read the guide
5 chapters
Food and meals at daycare
What a licensed BC centre must serve, what families pack, how allergies are handled, and what the day looks like at a centre where parents provide every meal.
Read the guideHow these guides are written
7 guides, 43 chapters, every claim sourced
We cite the body that issued the rule
Ratios come from the Child Care Licensing Regulation itself, funding amounts from the Province's own program pages, and facility counts from the Province's open data. Not from a summary of a summary.
Numbers that change carry a date
A fee schedule or a licensed capacity is true on a date, not forever. Where a figure moves, the text says when it was checked, so you can tell whether to look it up again.
We do not publish what we cannot check
Where a fact was not verifiable from an official source, it is left out rather than estimated. These guides are about the rules that apply to every centre in the province, not a sales pitch for this one.
A named person is responsible
Each guide carries the byline of the person who checked it. Tracy has run and worked in licensed centres in this province since 1998.
Looking for something shorter? The journal covers single questions in one sitting, and the licensed childcare finder lets you search every licensed facility in the Tri-Cities by name, street or postal code.
Come see it for yourself
Bring your little one. Stay as long as you like.
Tours run during regular hours. Meet the educators, see the rooms mid-day, and ask us anything at all.