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The Community
Care Facilities Branch
The Community Care Facilities Branch is part of the Health Protection
Division of the Ministry of Health, and is responsible for the
development and implementation of legislation, policy and guidelines
to protect the health and safety of people being cared for in
licensed facilities.
Licensed community care facilities include:
- Child
Day Care Facilities — These may include group
day care centers, preschools, out of school care and family
child care facilities.
- Residential
Care Facilities — For adults and children/youth.
These may include residential care for seniors, group homes
and drug and alcohol facilities.
There are approximately 5,200 licensed child care facilities
and 1,050 licensed adult and child residential care facilities
in British Columbia.
The Branch provides support to medical health officers and
over 100 licensing officers located in health
authorities across the province.
 The
Ministry of Children and Family Development is now responsible
for the Early Childhood Educator Registry. For further information,
visit their website at: http://www.mcf.gov.bc.ca/childcare/educators.htm
The recently conducted public consultation process for renewing
the regulations for licensed child day care and for licensed
residential care settings for adults, children and youth is now
completed. Comments received to date are currently being collated
and analyzed. A report of findings will be posted to the website
in the future. For more information on the consultation process,
visit the Regulatory
Renewal: Public Consultation Process page of our website.
Community
Care Facilities Branch Goals
- To protect the health and safety of people cared for in licensed
community care facilities by setting minimum health and safety
requirements
- To provide support to the health authority community care
Licensing programs and staff.
Facilities
and Licensing
Community care licensing programs are administered locally by
medical health officers and licensing officers, who are responsible
for direct service delivery in health
authorities throughout the province.
Medical health officers and licensing officers provide inspection
and monitoring of licensed facilities for the purpose of promoting
the health and safety of people living in or using community
care facilities.
Legislation
and Regulations
The Community
Care and Assisted Living Act
was brought into force on May 14, 2004. It replaced the Community
Care Facility Act. For more detailed information
related to the new Community Care and Assisted Living
Act, web site.
The Community Care and Assisted Living Act provides
the legislative authority for the director of licensing and medical
health officers to exercise certain powers and to carry out mandated
duties and responsibilities.
The Community
Care and Assisted Living Regulation lists the ‘prescribed
services’. The number of prescribed services offered by an operator,
for adult residential care, differentiates a licensed community
care facility from an assisted living residence. This regulation
also establishes access to the Community Care and Assisted Living
Appeal Board process.
The Adult
Care Regulations and the Child
Care Licensing Regulation establish the minimum
health and safety standards for licensed community care
facilities. These regulations contain definitions, license
application requirements, staff requirements and physical
requirements related to health and safety.
The Assisted
Living Regulation pertains
only to assisted living residences. For more information
on assisted living in British Columbia, view the Office
of the Assisted Living Registrar.
The Ministry
of Health is responsible for maintaining the relevancy and
currency of the Act and its regulations.
Further
Information:
Last Revised:
November 29, 2005
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