Fear and frustration

When the parents received the news from Rainbow Day Nursery that a spot had opened for their infant daughter, it felt like they had won the lottery.

For months, the Winnipeg couple had tried everything to crack the near-impossible code of finding affordable child care in Manitoba.

They placed their names on wait lists that never seemed to budge, repeatedly visited dozens of centres in the hopes of fast-tracking their daughter’s enrolment and solicited the advice of family and friends who had already gone through the same laborious process.

Panic started to set in when their daughter was six months old and the mom was scheduled to return to work. They were willing to go anywhere; they knew they couldn’t be picky.

“I just kept postponing my maternity leave,” the mom said in an interview. “Even with all those measures in place, we still did not get in.”

But then, by a stroke of luck, their prayers were answered.

The dad had told a business client about their struggles. The client suggested they speak with his wife, an assistant director at Rainbow Day Nursery in Winnipeg’s Southdale neighbourhood.

That conversation would prove to be the winning ticket. Soon, their daughter was enrolled in the infant program at the government-licensed centre and a life that had felt unmanageable at times was getting back to normal.

“We were thrilled,” the dad said. “It was a massive weight lifted off our shoulders.”

That daycare dream turned into a never-ending nightmare a couple of years later.

Through tears, the mom explained how their now four-year-old daughter was followed into the daycare’s bathroom and abused by several boys who were one year older. (The Free Press is not publishing the names of the family to protect the identity of the girl.)

The incident, detailed in an emotional three-hour interview at the couple’s suburban home, would mark the beginning of a months-long search for answers, an exhaustingly painful — and lonely — journey that would make their pursuit for a daycare spot seem like child’s play.

“We were not going to leave one stone unturned,” the mom said. “It was the hardest thing we’ve ever done. We felt like we were in hell.”

Their disbelief and anger over the inaction by parties whose primary goal is to protect children led them to blow the whistle on a lack of oversight of Manitoba’s youngest and most vulnerable citizens.

“It was the hardest thing we’ve ever done. We felt like we were in hell.”–Mom

Many of the obstacles they would face were all too familiar inside what industry experts say is a severely broken system.

It’s a system that prioritizes affordability over quality, is plagued by poor working conditions resulting in high turnover in staff, is hampered by a lack of accountability and transparency at the provincial level and has a reporting system that leaves families with more questions than answers.

With that as a backdrop, the Free Press undertook a months-long investigation into the state of child care in Manitoba and examined the underlying issues that put kids and families at risk. This is the first instalment in a six-part series.

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It was Feb. 12, 2023 — Super Bowl Sunday. The dad was out with friends watching the game, the mom was home with their daughter. During dinner, the little girl said a boy tried to get into the daycare bathroom while she was in there.

The mom didn’t pry. What struck her as odd was her daughter saying the incident occurred in a different building from her usual classroom.

She found out the next day that Rainbow staff would regularly take older preschool children, such as their daughter, to a second facility a short walk away as part of a strategy to integrate them with kids already in the public school system. It was a protocol to which they had never consented, the mom said.

That evening, their daughter revealed more.

“She told us during supper that, in reality, what had happened was that five boys had taken turns putting their fingers inside of her,” the mom said, pausing several times to compose herself.

“She said it happened in the bathroom. She said that she had looked up for the teacher… at the time and she said that she was having a Slurpee and was just not present and not there to help her.”

When asked how the boys got into the bathroom, her daughter said the door didn’t have a lock. She kept saying she couldn’t find anyone to help her.

“We were at a complete loss,” the mom said. “We were just numb.”

“We were at a complete loss. We were just numb.”–Mom

The couple knew it wasn’t simply a misunderstanding. The parents had talked repeatedly to their daughter, even at her young age, about boundaries concerning her body.

“We have talked for a long time about identifying the right male and female anatomy,” the mom said.

“She knew what touching was and wasn’t allowed, and who was allowed to touch her. This was something that was ingrained in her from the day that she could speak.”

The couple was torn. They wanted to immediately remove their daughter but didn’t want to separate her from friends or give the impression she was being punished. They were also short on options, with both parents working full-time and knowing other daycare options were scarce.

“We were very uneasy letting her go back to school,” the dad said, “but we emailed, called and said, ‘Whatever you do, she’s not to leave her building and that we need to have a meeting ASAP.’”

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It wasn’t long before the incident started to take a toll on the family.

Their daughter’s demeanour changed, the mom said. She would have “massive meltdowns” and complain that her private parts hurt. She started to wet the bed and bad dreams became more frequent, including screaming fits in the middle of the night.

Those symptoms would abate after they got their daughter into therapy, though some issues still linger. The mom also started seeing a therapist to process her trauma.

“I thought we were on top of everything, having had those precautions, all those hard conversations already in place. Then to find out that regardless of what we did, we had failed to keep her safe,” the mom said, tears running down her cheeks.

“We just never in our wildest dreams thought that in a daycare setting, a government-run daycare setting, that this would ever happen… I felt a tremendous amount of guilt.”

“We just never in our wildest dreams thought that in a daycare setting, a government-run daycare setting, that this would ever happen.”–Mom

They contacted Rainbow Day Nursery to set up a meeting, followed by calls to the provincial co-ordinator with Early Learning and Child Care Manitoba responsible for licensing oversight of the centre, and the police, who directed them to the Child and Family All Nations Coordinated Response Network (ANCR), the first point of contact with the Child and Family Services (CFS) system.

Those were steps the parents believed would lead to answers and prevent similar incidents from happening in the future.

The meeting with Rainbow did not go well.

Rainbow staff admitted to being aware of a blind spot near the bathroom in the second site, known as Building 3B.

They also acknowledged — when pressed by the couple — that two boys had exposed their penises to the girl in a separate incident. Their daughter had disclosed the incident to her parents days before the meeting.

“It had happened the same week that the incident with our daughter and those other boys,” the dad said. “And not a single word to us.”

The staff at the meeting, which included Rainbow’s assistant director for Buildings 3A and 3B and the supervisor of their child’s room, tried to dismiss the incident as “kids being kids” and suggested their daughter didn’t have her facts straight, the couple said.

“Not one ounce of empathy and no humanity for what we were trying to explain to them…,” the mom said. “(The supervisor) was so dismissive. For her to even suggest that our daughter could have made this up, it felt retraumatizing.”

Despite an unsatisfactory meeting, the couple, based on their therapist’s advice to keep their daughter’s life as normal as possible, and knowing their options were limited, told the centre they would keep her spot, but she was not to leave Building 3A and that they wanted daily observational reports.

“We felt like we were dying, but we couldn’t let our daughter see that,” the mom said.

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Following the setback at Rainbow, the couple was buoyed by the response of ANCR’s intake assessment worker. The woman was calm and reassuring; the couple believed she was taking the matter seriously.

ANCR provides emergency and non-emergency protective and preventative services to families. An intake screening program assesses calls, then takes into consideration whether the situation requires the services of CFS and how to respond to any emergency conditions.

When it comes to allegations of abuse, there are, according to ANCR’s website, “specially trained investigators in place to provide efficient investigations at the highest standard of practice possible.”

The goal is to intervene as necessary, stabilize the crisis and refer children and families to appropriate services and supports.

The case worker ANCR assigned to the family interviewed their daughter at their home; the parents were not in the room but were allowed to be within earshot.

Their daughter gave a full account of what happened, with the only change being it was four boys not five. The ANCR worker said she would contact the boys’ families and check out the two buildings as part of her investigation.

The provincial co-ordinator with Early Learning and Child Care (ELCC), meanwhile, said she couldn’t talk to the parents while the investigation was ongoing.

“We were pretty much told we were shit out of luck until the investigation is done,” the mom said. “Of all the governing bodies that we had to contact, (ELCC) was probably the most useless.”

“We were pretty much told we were shit out of luck until the investigation is done.”–Mom

What hurt the most during this time, the parents said, was the silence and lack of support they encountered everywhere they turned. They found it difficult to reconcile the governing bodies’ mandates of being built on understanding, empathy and compassion with the way they were being treated.

During the Free Press investigation, several child-care directors across the province were asked about their protocols when dealing with serious allegations. All said their first responsibility is to support the child and family.

That was not this couple’s experience.

“When we felt we were drowning, not one person threw us a lifeline, or showed any empathy or remorse,” said the mom, who started to experience panic attacks. “I felt like I could barely survive.”

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ANCR’s investigation finished in April 2023. ELCC conducted its own investigation. No formal reports were provided to the family.

The couple was told by ANCR’s case worker that the boys denied their involvement and their parents were shocked by the allegations. There was no word about the employee responsible for supervising their daughter.

The case worker said Rainbow recognized the need for better protocols for consent to go the building and around using the bathroom, but ANCR’s hands were tied as far as enforcing changes.

“We were told because there’s no one they can actually go after, because it’s a government body, to try and prove negligence on a person would be nearly impossible,” the mom said. “To go through all that and nothing really happens, and you’re told there’s nothing they can do, it was demoralizing.”

“To go through all that and nothing really happens… it was demoralizing.”–Mom

With the investigation concluded, Rainbow staff agreed to another meeting. The couple was assured the centre was already making changes, including installing a mirror to eliminate the blind spot near the bathroom. A bathroom lock had been added and policy now required a teacher to accompany a child to the bathroom.

The centre had also begun sending consent forms to parents for permission to take children from Building 3A to 3B.

When the centre asked what it could further do to support them, the mom kept picturing her daughter’s description of the staff worker sitting with a Slurpee.

“The rage that we were feeling of not being able to do anything about it was keeping us up at night,” the mom said.

“I told her to imagine this was her kid. They hear us out and we leave with no answers.”

A few weeks later, they received an email from the daycare’s assistant director saying the employee “is no longer with us.”

“Then she ends it with, ‘We truly hope this helps you gain a small sense of closure as you navigate your healing journey,’” the mom said.

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The Free Press sent a list of detailed questions to Rainbow Day Nursery outlining the parents’ concerns. Acting board chair Ainsley Baker responded on behalf of the centre.

Baker confirmed “an alleged incident” was reported and investigated by both ELCC and ANCR, and that the centre conducted its own internal review.

“Both management and the Board take any reports of incidents seriously and everyone involved fully co-operated with the government investigations, in addition to our own internal review,” she said in the email response.

“Once ANCR was involved, we were very limited in what we could do even with respect to our own review so as not to interfere with their work and we defer to their findings.

“Because of confidentiality requirements, we cannot comment on the specific findings of the investigations, except to say that the findings by both governing bodies/authorities (ANCR and ELCC) indicated no required changes to be made by Rainbow regarding policy, procedure or practice and did not warrant any further actions by Rainbow Day Nursery.”

The board would not confirm if the centre has a bathroom policy, but noted Rainbow has supervision policies that are regularly reviewed.

Baker also said the board and the centre’s executive director were unable to meet with the family until the investigations were concluded in order not to interfere in the process. That rationale was explained to the family, she said.

Owing to privacy rules, Rainbow was unable to provide specific details about its own internal review, other than to say the results were consistent with the investigations by ANCR and ELCC and that “all policies, procedure, standards and regulations were met and followed,” Baker said, adding based on those findings there was no action warranted with respect to the centre’s staffing.

Like the family, Rainbow did not receive a copy of the investigations by ELCC or ANCR.

“Following ANCR concluding their involvement, Board members met with the family to address any outstanding concerns including their request to transfer within Rainbow’s organization to a different centre location and to notify parents of the alleged incidents,” Baker said.

“We appreciate from a public standpoint the importance of having child care safety and concerns investigated, however publishing serious allegations that according to my understanding were not substantiated and did not require any changes, improvements or new policy, procedure or practice, poses a concern for Rainbow.”

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A provincial spokesperson said they can not comment on a specific case, but generally, complaints are investigated by provincial co-ordinators in a timely manner and that potential followup could include additional interviews with the complainant, unscheduled inspections and a conversation with the facility’s director, or board of directors or owner.

“The Licensing and Compliance Child Coordinator receiving a complaint from a family will listen to and record the details of the concerns,” the spokesperson said.

“Based on the nature of the complaint, they may advise of regulations associated with the complaint, and may request further details regarding the complaint. If the complaint is regulatory in nature (the co-ordinator) would follow up on the concerns.”

That did not occur in the family’s case. They were never told about an official investigation by ELCC.

The Free Press reached out to ANCR for comment but calls were not returned.

In Manitoba, government-licensed centres are regulated under the Community Child Care Standards Act. Provincial co-ordinators annually inspect facilities and issue operating licences, either full or provisional.

Rainbow Day Nursery was operating on a full licence at the time of the first incident and received a renewal a month later while ELCC and ANCR were still carrying out their investigations.

When a serious violation occurs, a child-care facility can be issued a licensing order. In those cases, centres must have completed a corrective plan before the order is lifted.

Rainbow Day Nursery has never been issued a licensing order in the last two decades.

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The couple took comfort in knowing steps were being taken to make it safer for children and felt relief upon being told the worker in charge had been fired.

It also helped knowing their daughter would be starting at a Montessori school in the fall, though it would cost $700 a month.

They had been paying a fraction of that amount because the province had recently introduced $10 per day child-care fees.

Their world began to unravel a month later.

“(Our daughter) said a friend of hers had followed her into the bathroom and that her vagina hurt because his long fingernails had cut her,” said the mom, who documented the physical injuries.

“I just have no words to describe hearing that for a second time… We were finally starting to feel OK, and I just felt the wind suck out of me.”

“We were finally starting to feel OK, and I just felt the wind suck out of me.”–Mom

Their daughter said the incident happened in her own classroom at Rainbow, Building 3A. It was nap time, and thick curtains covering the windows darkened the room.

With no teacher to be found, the mom said her daughter, along with a boy and another girl, went to the bathroom together. Their daughter said the other girl was also touched inappropriately.

“That was her last day there,” the dad said. “With all the measures that were supposed to be in place, how does this happen again?”

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The process of trying to get answers began with a new round of calls to Rainbow, ANCR and the provincial co-ordinator.

ANCR seemed disinterested in a second investigation, with exchanges becoming tense and including accusations the parents might be coaching their daughter’s testimony, the couple said.

When told the second incident involved another classmate being touched as well, the ANCR worker told the family there was nothing they could do because it was hearsay and that they would be invading the other family’s privacy.

The parents reminded the case worker that there was a moral duty to report the information.

The results of the investigation came as no surprise to the parents, with ANCR concluding it “didn’t find anything,” the dad said. Again, the family was not given a copy of any investigation report by ANCR, ELCC or Rainbow.

Baker reiterated in her response there was no finding in either investigation requiring changes to policy, procedure or practice, or the notification of families.

The mom said their mission was never about punishing the young children involved, though she dismisses the idea of older boys isolating a younger girl as being normal behaviour.

The fault, she said, falls on the nursery for not having appropriate policies in place and then being unable to follow through with them once they were established.

“Every single (party), every single one, said, in one way or another, kids were just being kids.”–Mom

“Every single (party), every single one, said, in one way or another, kids were just being kids and kids are curious about their body. Completely minimizing the situation again and again,” the mom said.

“If we can get over the kids being kids and not being the kids’ fault, whose fault is it? At the end of the day, right back to negligence on behalf of the centre.”

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Daycare centres ultimately fall under the umbrella of the Manitoba Department of Education and Early Childhood Learning.

In June 2023, following the second incident, their MLA, Jamie Moses, wrote a letter on the couple’s behalf to then education minister Wayne Ewasko. After getting confirmation of receiving the letter, the couple never heard from the department again.

The state of child care in Manitoba is in crisis, multiple experts told the Free Press, with staffing shortages among the most pressing issues.

There is no doubt in the couple’s mind the system’s current challenges played a role in their case.

In the second incident, their daughter mentioned a teacher’s name that was unfamiliar to the parents. They later found out it was a substitute who filled in when the centre was short-staffed.

“For a while it was like a carousel of people coming and going,” the dad said.

They also believe a sector-wide staffing shortage was an issue in the first incident, he said.

It turns out the staff worker with the Slurpee was never fired, just moved to a different location. They found out months later when Rainbow executive director Brenda Charriere made a slip in a meeting following the second incident.

What really bothered the family was Charriere referring to the situation as “awkward.”

“So much for starting our healing journey,” the mom said.

“So much for starting our healing journey.”–Mom

By this point, feeling the emotional and financial strain of the previous months, the couple made a last-ditch appeal to the centre’s parent-run board. Instead of finding what they believed to be “our biggest ally,” they hit one more obstacle, the mom said.

They were initially told they would have to wait because ANCR’s investigation was ongoing, but were later told the board would not meet with them because the couple no longer had a child at the daycare.

“Thank you for the note,” the mom began, reading an email from the board, tears again running down her face.

“Your request has been denied. Any further follow ups will need to be done with ANCR and/or ELCC. Thank you and we wish you well.”

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It wasn’t until the family threatened to go to the media that the board agreed to discuss their concerns — exactly nine months to the day since their daughter first revealed she had been followed into the bathroom.

The meeting was led by Ainsley Baker, with past chair Rachelle Kotowicz also in attendance.

The parents gave a rundown of what they describe as the worst year of their lives. They ask how this could have happened to their daughter, if anyone was going to be held accountable and why the board denied their request to meet.

They wanted to ensure the daycare centre was taking things seriously and not sweeping the matter under the rug, so they asked if the board planned to be transparent and let other families know why they had made changes to improve safety conditions. And they pushed back when the centre said reports by ELCC and ANCR found no finding of fault.

The meeting ended with the parents asking the centre to let them know how they planned to hold themselves accountable. They sent a followup email with a list of questions, but never heard back from the board.

The parents said the struggles they’ve experienced trying to find answers for their daughter and to ensure meaningful change at the centre, while traumatizing, are also their motivation for speaking out.

They’ve said they’re not out for financial compensation, even though they’ve had to incur the heavy costs of private child care and therapy sessions for the family.

It was a difficult decision to go to the media, they added, weighing the discomfort of going public with the fear this could happen to someone else.

In the end, they say they wanted to do their best to ensure no other family has to endure the kind of pain they’ve experienced.

“Parents need to ask, ‘what is happening after I drop my kids off?’”–Dad

“If it wasn’t for all the help from professionals we know, we would have been lost,” the mom said.

“I couldn’t imagine this happening to someone who doesn’t have our resources, our connections or maybe someone who doesn’t speak English. We couldn’t live with that.”

“It’s not just about our story or what happened to our daughter. It’s a bigger-picture problem,” the dad added.

“Parents need to ask, ‘what is happening after I drop my kids off?’”

jeff.hamilton@winnipegfreepress.com

— with files by Katrina Clarke

We want to hear about your experiences with Manitoba’s child-care system. Responses can be emailed to: childcare@winnipegfreepress.com

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