The Manitoba Safe Child Care Charter contains safety plans and codes of conduct for 1,105 licensed child-care facilities.
It covers all conceivable situations, from bomb threats to weather
crises, instructing staff on how to respond, plan evacuations and get
in touch with parents.
'We want fun, healthy and safe places for our children to learn and grow.'—Family Services Minister Gord Mackintosh
"We
want fun, healthy and safe places for our children to learn and grow.
Today we are introducing safety standards so that all parents can rest
assured that reasonable steps have been taken to protect their
children," said Family Services Minister Gord Mackintosh.
The safety plans also detail how to keep unwanted people out, how to
respond when children have severe allergies, and what action to take
when staff or children are threatened.
The codes of conduct deal with, among other things, the
inappropriate use of email, computers and the internet, bullying and
harassment.
Extensive consultations, including more than 40 workshops with
child-care facilities plus follow-up advice and support, formed the
groundwork for the charter, Mackintosh said.
"Child-care facilities have risen to the challenge with extraordinary efforts and I am most thankful," he said.
All child-care facilities must also maintain locked doors to keep
out intruders. In places where that is not practical because a
child-care centre is in shared space with a school or community centre,
other methods of controlling visitor access will be approved,
Mackintosh said.
The province will cover reasonable costs for equipment to make that possible, he added.
The new measures must be in place by April 2011.