Transition from Early Years to EarlyON programs for children, families causes community concerns

Craig Bakay | May 30, 2018

The change in how early years child and family programs are funded has resulted in a situation that moved one area mother to start a petition on change.org, asking Rural Frontenac Community Services (RFCS) to rescind termination letters it sent out to five affected staff members.

Jean Conlon, who has had two children go through the Early Years program, became concerned about the stress the staff members are going through and initiated the petition which by 3 p.m. on Tuesday afternoon had 193 signatures.

“These ladies do an incredible job and they don’t deserve this stress,” Conlon said.

RFCS operates an Ontario Early Years Centre, which us funded through a contract with the Ministry of Education under the Ontario Early Years Program. That contact runs out on June 30 when the Early Years Centres will be replaced by new EarlyOn centres, with the City of Kingston being the operators for Kingston and Frontenac County. Last November, the City set out a Request for Proposal (RFP) for Service to find providers for the EarlyOn services.

While RFCS was preparing their (RFP) submission, their board was concerned about the possibility they would not be the successful applicant in Frontenac County. The RFCS board delivered termination letters to the five staff members of it Ontario Early Years Centre on February 6, effective June 30.

In April, the City awarded contracts to three agencies to provide EarlyON services, Kingston and Community Health Centres, the Boys & Girls Club of Kingston in the City of Kingston, and RFCS in Frontenac County. The RFCS EarlyOn headquarters will be operated by RFCS out of a new headquarters in South Frontenac. The EarlyON staff complement will include 8 full time positions, a supervisor and 7 front line workers.

The five Early Years staff members have been encouraged to apply to fill some of those those new jobs. (The first job to be posted was for EarlyOn Supervisor has been posted and closes on June 4 at 4pm)

Community members who have made use of the Early Years Services at play groups across the county have come out in support of the five employees, saying the letters of termination should be rescinded, and the five employees guaranteed a job in the EarlyOn program, and the Change.org petition asks the RFCS Board to do just that.

When the RFCS board of directors became aware that there concerns about the way the changes have been handled, they issued a statement, which reads in part:

“It was clearly understood, that effective June 30, 2018, the Early Years program and the related contracts with the agencies would be terminated. Existing operators were advised, and in each case did inform their employees that there was no certainty that the agency would secure the contract anticipated by the bidding process, and that their employment would be terminated on June 30.

“Our dedicated Early Years staff participated fully in the development of the EarlyON proposal that our agency made to the City of Kingston, contributing their insight and experience . . . RFCS was successful and awarded the responsibility for the EarlyON centres for essentially all of Frontenac County.

“The EarlyON operations for RFCS will employ more staff that we employ today.”

The statement went on to say that a hiring process is underway and “due consideration of past service will be given.” The ful statement can be read at the following url: http://www.rfcs.ca/news/statement-of-the-board-of-directors-of-rural-frontenac-community-services-regarding-the-new-earlyon-centre/

One rumor that has been circulating in the community and on Facebook is that other agencies facing similar situations have “rescinded” similar letters needs some clarification.

While it is true that situations have been handled differently elsewhere, the News cannot confirm that any letters have been “rescinded”, particularly because they didn’t exist in some cases.

Kelly Allan, executive director at Family Space which had administered Early Years in a wide area in the Quinte region and will now administer EarlyON, said Family Space didn’t issue any termination letters.

“I can understand why an agency would issue such a letter and we did receive legal advice to do so,” she said. “But we decided to take a chance by not issuing such letters trusting that we’d be successful in our bid. And we were. All of our Early Years staff and all our contract staff still have their jobs and will as long as we have funding.

“We’re even looking at adding some permanent staff.”

As far as the Boys and Girls Clubs goes, they had no Early Years program and as such had no staff to inform that the program was ending.

Wendy Vuyk, director of communications at Kingston and Community Health Centres, said she couldn’t comment on what they consider to be private HR (human resources) matters.

(Publisher/editors note. Full Disclosure, I serve on the Board of Directors of Rural Frontenac Community Services as Vice-Chairperson – Jeff Green)