Overwhelmed

[fifi]

Some days I just feel totally overwhelmed by all the sadness in the children's lives. The death of a parent, a mom who abandons her children, a dad who sexually abuses his daughter and somehow ends up with more custody than the mom, all the children trying to cope with the separation of their parents and all the tension and miscommunication that occurs, the children who are bounced around from mom to daycare to dad to daycare to babysitter to mom and on it goes. I feel like I am required to be not only child care provider, but therapist, social worker, special needs worker etc. All the sadness breaks my heart, and I often go home on the weekend and can't stop thinking about it. Two staff for 16 children is not enough, but it is the standard where I live.

[Josiegirl]

There is only so much a person can do and their home lives are out of our control. And really, what they need most from you is a safe place where they feel loved, protected and cared for. Don't forget to take care of you through all the caring for them. It can feel overwhelming thinking about all a young child is going through but just know you are a positive impact for them.

[fifi]

When there are complex, disruptive behavioural issues as a result of what's going on at home, then my coworker and I do have to address what's going on. We have several children who have their own incident books in which we are required to document observations, but with only 2 staff it's very difficult to have one staff sit out to observe and document one child at a time, while the other staff supervises the other 15 children. Here in Canada the shortage of ECEs is at a critical level. My boss is having a hard time finding someone to fill a full time position on the I/T side, and although we have funding for a special needs worker for one of our preschoolers, there isn't anyone to fill that position. So we are doing our best with that little guy, but neither of us have our special needs training. There is another little guy who needs to be assessed, but before we can do that we have to have a meeting with his parents, who split up, which makes things challenging to get everyone's schedules to line up and everyone on the same page.