Boys and Girls Club of Niagara- St. Catharines Club

amazing place to meet and hangout with people staff are nice, lots of fun activities. i wish it were longer its only Tuesdays and Thursdays 6PM-8PM For Teen Zone

More for ages 4 threw 9

For nearly 4 years, two of my children have been going to the Boys and Girls Club, in St Catharines. One of which is my youngest, he’s 6 and has special needs. Up until roughy May 2018, there were some calls home and to work about my youngest son, and some of his behaviours. All in all, the former staff at the club were understanding in the fact that he has needs and would work with me in having a schedule, and visual queues to help him cope. Those things were in place most of the school year in 2017 and worked fairly well, and happened without incident for the most part. Fast forward a few months and a new Manager came into the club, and the former child care person that was there and helping with my son the most was fired for whatever reason. Then the nightmare started, daily incident reports needed to be signed, sometimes 4 and 5 a day. Multiple times I had to leave work and go to pick my son up. Until roughly August 15th, 2018 when I was handed a letter saying that my son was no longer going to be provided care at the club because “they didn’t have the staff to care for him properly”. And they would “help to find care”. Which was a complete and utter lie. I have since had to take a leave of absence from work because he was essentially kicked out of a program that he’s been a part of the better part of two years. Not to mention my other son not 2 weeks ago was left behind at school because they didn’t take him on the bus, and failed to find out if he was at the school or not. Especially considering he was taken to school by the clubs transportation.The Boys and Girls club kicking my youngest out of the club has cost me my career. And is now the cause of me not being able to find care for him anywhere due to there being waitlists at every daycare in St. Catharines.I truly feel as though my son was targeted because they didn’t want to follow through with the things that the former staff and I had in place as it was too much work for them. The fact that they kicked out a child with special needs under the guise of “we can’t provide him the proper care” when I fact those things were already in place prior to the new management is astounding.Poor show, Boys and Girls club.