An Ontario mother is calling on the government to introduce a policy requiring daycare staff to contact the parents of truant children in hopes of preventing hot car deaths.
The idea came last month after a 23-month-old boy died after being accidentally left in a hot car outside his mother’s workplace in Bancroft, Ontario. His death not only shook the community, but parents across the province were devastated by the loss.
Alicia Wilson, mother of three in Whitby, Ontario. was one of those parents.
“I don’t know the family, but I really enjoyed it,” Alicia Wilson told CTV News Toronto. “I just kept thinking, ‘what can we do to prevent this?’ This death is just – it is so sad and so tragic.’
The result was a petition calling on the government to establish a “Safe Arrivals” policy for daycares in Ontario. The idea is that parents will be notified if their child does not show up as planned.
This policy itself is not new. In 1999, the Ontario government at the time issued a memorandum that required schools to have a safe arrival program that would “account for the unexplained refusal of any student to arrive at school.”
For the Toronto District School Board, this means parents should contact their child’s school if they will be absent. If they do not, they will receive an automated phone call informing them that their child has not arrived. If the parent or guardian does not answer after three attempts, the school will call them again in the evening.
Wilson argues that it should be relatively easy for kindergartens to implement such a policy.
“Our day care facilities need to accept attendance. Our kindergartens must call parents when a child is injured there or when they become ill. But they don’t have to call us if they don’t attend,” she said. “That’s why I started this petition.”
This petition already has more than 2,000 signatures. Wilson says the response has been “overwhelmingly positive.”
“We kind of realize that it’s not happening in our kindergartens, it’s just happening in our schools,” she said. “Some people are concerned about liability, but if our school systems can do this, why can’t our kindergartens?”
She emphasized that the policy is not intended to place the blame for hot car deaths on daycares or other child care facilities, but rather to provide “an extra layer of protection for Ontario’s children.”
“I’m hoping that if this policy can be put in place in daycares and daycares, if a parent forgets a child in the car, then getting that phone call will trigger that memory and force them to remember and that could save the child’s life .”
Experts say forgetting a child in the back seat is a tragic accident that can happen to anyone. A 2019 study by researchers at the University of Toronto and the Hospital for Sick Children found that in the U.S., an average of 37 children die each year after being left in a hot car.
Just over half of these cases are due to a child involuntarily leaving a child due to stress, fatigue or routine changes.
In the case of Everett Smith in Bancroft, his family said something stressful had happened earlier in the day and dropping the child off at daycare was not part of his mother’s daily routine.
Everett Smith, who would have turned two next month, is seen in this photo provided by Bancroft Mayor Paul Jenkins.
The child was left in the car while his mother, who is a school teacher, went to work. He was found unresponsive at the end of the day.
An investigation into the incident is underway.
Wilson, who has a child Everett’s age, says she can’t imagine what the parents are going through.
“Every morning I wake up with my son and see him grow up, but this mom in Bancroft who wakes up at the same time as me, has the same time as me, she doesn’t get it anymore,” she said.
“It doesn’t matter if you’re a good parent or a bad parent, it doesn’t matter if you’re rich or poor, it can happen.”
A spokesman for the Education Secretary said licensed nurseries could choose to implement a safe arrival policy as long as it did not interfere with other requirements in the Childcare and Early Years Act.
They also said the ministry “continually evaluates health and safety requirements for child care in Ontario to ensure the province maintains its high standards of health, safety and quality for licensed child care.” That includes hearing feedback liaison from parents, child care programs, experts and members of the public.
The spokesperson did not specifically indicate whether or not they would consider enforcing a safe arrival policy for licensed child care operators.
With files from the Canadian Press
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