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November 28, 2016

Finishing the Best Start vision in Ontario: A response to Ontario’s early years consultation

Excerpt: "Investments in expanding both capacity and affordability must go hand-in-hand. Each municipality needs the flexibility to plan the right balance based on local circumstances between increasing access through capital and increasing access through operating/subsidy. Allowing for a phased approach provides the flexibility to change based on changing circumstances from year to year."
November 15, 2016

Improving access to quality, affordable child care

Excerpt: "Each new child-care centre will receive up to $500,000 in operating funding in the first year, with the opportunity to receive two more years of funding. The locations of new child-care centres, targeted to where demand is greatest, will be announced early in 2017."
October 28, 2016

EDI BC: 2016 Provincial Report

Explore EDI vulnerability rates & trends for BC kids via our new interactive EDI BC 2016 Provincial Report.
October 25, 2016

“I’m more than ‘just’ an ECE”: Decent work from the perspective of Ontario’s early childhood workforce

Excerpt: "Across all eight communities participants expressed dissatisfaction with low wages, which they felt did not reflect their level of training or experience in the sector. The majority of participants believed that in order to recruit and retain RECEs, the starting wage should be set at $20 per hour or be equal to the starting wage of Designated Early Childhood Educators (DECEs) working in FDK programs. For example, a participant from Peel stated, “As educators, we set the foundation for children and deserve equal pay to teachers.” The AECEO’s regional wage scale discussion paper suggests using the wages and benefits currently paid by municipal programs and other unionized environments as a benchmark for wage scales in the province (AECEO, 2015). Higher salaries and better benefits paid by school boards have lead many RECEs to leave positions in licensed child care to pursue careers in FDK, resulting in a recruitment and retention strain in licensed child care. Discussions about wages and benefits in FDK vs licensed child care led a number of participants to acknowledge feeling divided as a workforce."
October 21, 2016

Monitoring for equity (PDF)

Presented by Kerry McCuaig, Atkinson Centre Fellow In Early Childhood Policy, October 21, 2016 to the Flex PhD Cohort, OISE, Toronto, ON.
October 12, 2016

Ontario Bringing More Child Care to Waterloo Region Families

Excerpt: "Ontario is creating 88 new licensed child care spaces in the Waterloo Region, increasing the availability of safe, high-quality, child care for local families. The five new child care rooms for infants, toddlers and pre-schoolers will be located in the new St. Boniface Catholic School, which is scheduled to open in 2019. The spaces will give more families the opportunity to transition from child care into full-day kindergarten at the same location."
October 11, 2016

Helping Families in Niagara Region with Quality Child Care

Excerpt: "Premier Kathleen Wynne visited the onsite child care centre at Glynn A. Green Public School in Fonthill, where the government supported a retrofit of existing rooms to help create more than 30 new licensed child care spaces for toddlers and pre-schoolers."