B.C. releases new child care centre design guidelines

Feature photo credit: Josh Berson

Every province and territory in Canada have their own legislation and regulations that establish the minimum requirements for the physical space and daily procedures in child care centres and licensed family child care homes. Some jurisdictions also have developed separate design guidelines or sets of practices that go beyond the minimum requirements set in the regulations.

On that front, British Columbia has recently released its Design Guidelines for Child Care Centres. The 98 page document provides “detail above and beyond regulatory requirements with a goal of achieving higher and more consistent quality of child care centres throughout B.C. that are accessible and inclusive for all” (p7). 

Child Care Now (CCN) and the Coalition of Child Care Advocates of B.C. (CCCABC) welcome the release of the guidelines, but identify gaps and recommendations to ensure the guidelines complement B.C. expansion initiatives and priorities. 

It is not the first set of child care design guidelines to be released in British Columbia – the City of Vancouver and City of Richmond also have their own municipal design guidelines. 

The Guidelines were finalized after a series of consultations and a draft was released in 2023. The guidelines provide three categories of design guidance – Design Principle (high level objectives), Design Guideline (essential design elements) and Design Consideration (additional elements to consider where feasible), across four basic topics: planning and designing a child care centre, site plan, interior spaces, and exterior spaces.

Guidelines meet a pressing need 

Many project management, design and building professionals lack the specialized knowledge required to create high-quality child care facilities. Having access to comprehensive, province-wide guidelines will help these professionals make sound design decisions – including going beyond the regulatory minimum requirements – and justify the associated budgets, including to provincial granting officials.

Outdoor space recommendations reflect best practices

A welcome inclusion in the guidelines is the clear recommendation of 14m² of outdoor play space per child for all program types, compared with only 6 m² in the regulations. 14m² aligns with best practice, and recommendations made by the Coalition of Child Care Advocates of BC. 

The physical child care environment is an important predictor of quality, impacting the daily experiences of children, educators and other staff, and also parents at the centre. The B.C. guidelines for outdoor space design also align with best practice from research, recommending alternatives to large play structures, instead integrating more natural elements and materials that encourage children to use their imagination.  These elements also tend to be more inclusive for children with mobility needs to participate.

Voluntary nature of design guidelines leads to potential inequities and confusion for operators

The guidelines implicitly acknowledge that B.C.’s current regulatory minimum requirements do not reflect best practices for high quality child care facilities. Yet the current mandatory requirements remain unchanged, with these new guidelines being wholly voluntary. 

Additionally, the current guidelines do not explicitly include for-profit operators as an intended audience. This should be corrected so that all new licensed spaces are guided towards higher quality.

Grant guidelines and conditions in tension with Design Guidelines

CCN and CCCABC also note that In B.C.’s current individualized, grant-based child care expansion model, applicants are routinely advised to minimize the cost-per-space of their proposed projects in order to increase their competitiveness. In this context it is never clear what to do: stick with high-quality design elements to benefit children, or cut costs and quality to increase the chance of being approved for funding? The way the province evaluates these competing objectives (quality vs. cost) is opaque and leads many project teams to default to regulatory minimums or otherwise lower quality designs.

Unlike K-12 schools and hospitals, where expansion is led by the province via delegated public authorities (school districts and health authorities) and guided by formal capital plans and budgets, child care expansion in B.C. is highly decentralized/dependent on private or individual actors. While there will always be trade-offs (e.g. cost vs. quality), and site-specific considerations, including in highly centralized models, B.C.’s current decentralized approach will remain a root cause of inconsistent (and therefore inequitable) child care facility quality. 

CCN and CCCABC recommend clearer guidance for operators

CCN and CCCABC recommend that the province identify which of the new guidelines are most important, based on research and evidence, and turn them into updated mandatory requirements for all new facilities. 

Despite the concerns noted above, as CWELCC is rolled out and new centres are built or expanded, this document provides a valuable resource for planning and designing new child care centres, including drawing attention to the importance of land usage planning for site selection.