Over the past few days we here at the Childcare Resource and Research Unit have taken the time to learn, reflect, unlearn and pause in memory of the 215 Indigenous Children at the former residential school at Tk’emlups te Secwépemc First Nation in Kamloops, B.C. We affirm and commit to our role in continued reconciliation a as a national child care policy organization, and we understand that reconciliation is not a passive action but rather one that requires active disruption of colonial practices entrenched in policy and legislation, which continue to harm generations of First Nations, Metis and Inuit peoples. 

We understand that the truths of this past week are not historical but an ongoing violent reality and a stark reminder that all settlers across Canada must act on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s 94 Calls to Action.

We aim to continue to work towards reconciliation by following the leads of Indigenous governments, communities and partners to work in solidarity and honour the memory of lives lost and harmed.

Highlights

Reimagining childcare, parental leave, and employment policies for diverse Canadian families
Canadian Sociological Association, 2 June 2021
CRRU is a lead community partner and Martha Friendly co-leads the child care cluster in this SSHRC Partnership Grant examining the intersections among child care, parental leave and work. On June 2nd 2021, the grant team presented a panel at the Canadian Sociological Association conference. The recording will be shared on this website when it becomes available. For more information about the project, please see the project funding video. 
The COVID-19 pandemic has spurred critical and much needed attention to child care services as well as to wider sets of policies that address people’s paid work and unpaid care work. This panel explored three intra-connected critical pillars of Canada’s (federal, provincial, territorial) social policy architectures; childcare services, parental leave, and employment policies. The panel examined these in the context of COVID-19 and its long-term impacts on the lives of families and parents. They draw on research and analysis, including work-in-progress, that has been taken on, partly or wholly in response to the pandemic. The presenters also highlighted key issues that need to be considered in research, advocacy and policy development as we look ahead to the policy supports that families will need in order to live equitable, flourishing, and sustainable lives.

CA: One child is too many
Association of Early Childhood Educators Ontario, 31 May 2021
 
CA: Opinion: What can we learn from Quebec’s child care experiment?
Globe and Mail, 31 May 2021

CA: Chrystia Freeland is trying to supercharge Canada's growth 
Bloomberg, 28 May 2021

Inclusion quality: Children with disabilities in early learning and child care in Canada
SpeciaLink, May 2021
This book highlights the urgent need to improve the quality of care for children with special needs in early learning and child care in Canada and provides essential recommendations to achieve that. While the federal government’s current Multilateral Framework on Early Learning and Child Care has addressed many factors essential to the development of a strong national system of early learning and child care in Canada, there is a lack of focus on inclusion quality for children with special needs and their families who may get left behind. The book presents an analysis of the results of observations using the SpeciaLink Early Childhood Inclusion Quality Scale, in over 65 early learning and child care centres across Canada. 

Research, policy and practice

Equity as praxis in early childhood education and care
Canadian Scholars, 30 May 2021
This book aims to map, deconstruct, and engage with different models of equity as they pertain to the early childhood education land care landscape in Ontario. Drawing on narratives of gender, race, Indigeneity, dis/ability and inclusion, and migration, immigration, and displacement, the authors discuss how to advance the field and make it more equitable for marginalized children, families, early childhood educators, and all other practitioners. This edited collection outlines the current political climate of early childhood education and care in Ontario through a critical analysis of policies and dominant discourses of equity and inclusion. This text aims to encourage rethinking how narratives of equity and inclusion are constructed and what this means for young children and their families in Ontario as well as throughout Canada.

Child care data center & state fact sheets
Child Care Aware of America, 2 June 2021
Child Care Aware of America (CCAoA) has released their annual survey for 2020. This year, the survey included questions to gauge the effects of COVID-19 on states’ child care systems. The report highlights that although the numbers seem to indicate that child care providers are recovering, there is evidence that attendance and enrolment have not fully recovered. CCAoA recommends that federal and state policymakers ensure relief funds are used in ways that build a better child care system. Policymakers should prioritize the following policies: Workforce support, supply building and data infrastructure.

Prevention and management of allergic reactions to food in child care centers and schools: Practice guidelines
The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, 1 May 2021
Drawing upon findings from a systematic literature review of the anticipated health effects of selected interventions, these guidelines feature recommendations for food allergy management in child care centres and schools. The authors suggest that child care centres and schools implement allergy training and action plans, including training teachers in prevention, recognition, and treatment of food allergy; requiring parents of students with food allergy to provide allergy action plans; and having site-wide protocols for management of suspected allergic reactions. Instead of requiring students to supply their own personal autoinjectors, it is suggested that schools and child care centres stock unassigned epinephrine autoinjectors. Site-wide food prohibitions or allergen-restricted zones are not suggested, except in special circumstances.

The caring economy: Well-being and the invisible heart
Great Transition Initiative, February 2017
This interview with feminist economist Nancy Folbre explores the economics of caring and its role in fostering the understanding of the contemporary world and shaping its future. Folbre calls on economists to recognize the significant value to the global economy of both paid and unpaid care work which are often unpriced, hard to measure, and performed at the expense of women. Using the motherhood penalty to illustrate women’s larger share of the financial costs of caring for children, Folbre argues that children are a public good that offers both implicit and unpriced benefits that cannot be reduced to bilateral market exchange. Finally, Folbre concluded that the key to a caring economy would be to reduce the private costs and risks of caring for dependents and distribute these costs more equitably across not only genders but also across classes and household structures.  

Pre-school quality and educational outcomes at age 11: Low quality has little benefit
Journal of Early Childhood Research, March 2011
This article reports the effects of preschool quality on children’s cognitive and behavioural outcomes at age 11 using a large scale longitudinal study of 3000+ children in England . The Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale (ECERS-R) and a curricular extension ( to it  were used to assess the quality of provision in 141 preschool settings.  Multilevel modelling was used to investigate the effects of preschool quality on children’s academic and social-behavioural outcomes at age 11. The study identified that preschool quality significantly predicted most outcomes, after taking account of key child and family factors. More importantly, children who attended low quality preschools had cognitive and behavioural scores that were not significantly different from those of children with no preschool experience.

Child care in the news

CA: Indigenous leaders say discovery of children’s remains at Kamloops residential school is beginning of national reckoning
The Globe and Mail, 31 May 2021

CA: Opinion: It’s time to bring our children home from the residential schools
The Globe and Mail, 31 May 2021

PEI: New training program aims to grow sub list at P.E.I. child-care centres
CBC News, 25 May 2021

NS: In-person classes to resume in most regions, licensed child care returns to full capacity
Government of Nova Scotia, 28 May 2021

MB: Governments of Canada and Manitoba announce additional child-care spaces for francophone families
Government of Manitoba, 31 May 2021

MB: Manitoba extends aid for child-care centres amid lengthened remote learning stint
Global News, 31 May 2021

BC: B.C. teacher says students could be triggered by residential school discovery
The Abbotsford News, 31 May 2021

BC: More child-care spaces for Kamloops
Kamloops This Week, 25 May 2021

BC: From parkade to daycare
The Globe and Mail, 1 June 2021

US: The latest pandemic supply shock: Child care workers
Bloomberg City Lab, 1 June 2021 

EU: Opinion: Without a public childcare model there can be no equality for women
The Journal, 29 May 2021

Events

Next steps for child care advocacy in Ontario
Association of Early Childhood Educators Ontario & Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care, 
15 June 2021 | 7:00 pm EDT
Blurb: Join the Association of Early Childhood Educators Ontario and the Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care for a webinar about what’s next for child care advocacy in Ontario. Hear what’s happening around the province and how you can get connected and get involved. Together we can break a new path. 

Contesting neoliberalism in global early childhood education
UCL Centre for Teacher and Early Years Education,
21 June 2021 | 7:00 am - 8:30 am EDT
This research seminar invites international scholars from the global north and south to illuminate how neoliberalism manifests and shapes early childhood education in different social, cultural and political contexts. Reflecting on its hegemony, our speakers explore possibilities for resisting, refusing, and contesting neoliberalism in post-pandemic contexts of ECE.