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Liberal's (BC) Platform - Early Learning & Early Childhood Development

From the BC Liberal's Website

Early Learning & Early Child Development
We believe in providing free, innovative early learning options for children because early learning has been found to be critical to an individual’s lifetime development.

Minister of Education Shirley Bond talks about StrongStart BC and the importance of Early Learning.

• We know that 1 in 4 children enter kindergarten not developmentally ready to start school, so we created the StrongStart BC  program, a free drop-in early learning program for pre-school aged children accompanied by a parent or caregiver.
• We’re investing $43 million to establish 400 StrongStart BC centres across B.C. by 2010.  Today there are 190 centres up and running.
• Education Minister Shirley Bond and Minster of State for Child Care Linda Reid Launched StrongStart BC Early Learning Centres.
• As promised in our Throne Speech 2008, we established an Early Childhood Learning Agency (ECLA) to assess the feasibility and costs of providing full-day kindergarten for 5-year olds and providing parents the choice of full day kindergarten for 4-year olds by 2010 and 3-year olds by 2012.
• We are committed to our vision for expanding early learning opportunities, including full-day kindergarten for 5-year olds.
• We were the first Canadian jurisdiction to implement the province-wide Early Development Instrument, a neighbourhood-by-neighbourhood survey that assesses children’s state of development upon entering kindergarten.
• We established and provide $3 million annually to the Ready, Set, Learn program at more than 1,000 public schools to help parents and families prepare their 3-year olds for kindergarten.
• We’ve invested $23 million in the Success by 6 program to support early learning, nutrition, and family services in more than 220 communities across B.C.
• We’ve provided over $13 million in funding to support 259 Family Resource Programs that offer family development services for families with children 0-6 years of age.
• We became the first Canadian jurisdiction to implement the Roots of Empathy program for school-aged children and the Seeds of Empathy program for preschoolers reaching more than 60,000 BC students.
• We dedicate over $7 million annually to support 43 Aboriginal Early Childhood Development initiatives.
• We created the Kindergarten book program that gives every Kindergarten student in B.C. a book to help them get excited about reading.
  Click for a photo of Minister Shirley Bond donating books to the Penticton Raise-a-Reader campaign:
• We invest $125,000 annually in Books for Babies. Every baby born in B.C. receives a book bag with a book, CD and information on library and community services to help parents prepare their children for a lifetime of reading and learning.

Liberal's (BC) Platform - Child Care

From the BC Liberal Website

Child Care

• We are providing child care subsidies for low-income families and investing in new child care spaces so that all parents have more options for affordable, quality child care.
• Minister of State for Child Care Linda Reid talks about the importance of supporting families with child care subsidies.
• We spend $300 million a year on child care, up from $212 million in 2000/01, an increase of 42 per cent.
• This is in addition to exploring the feasibility and costs of providing full day kindergarten for five-year-olds and four-year-olds by 2010, and 3-year olds by 2012.
• Budget 2009 increases the child care subsidy budget by $25 million over three years helping more lower and middle-income families.
  

Spaces & Capital

• We’ve increased the number of new and existing licensed child care spaces supported by our child care operating funding from 45,000 in 2001 to over 90,000 today.
• We’ve created 6,500 new spaces – more than 3,000 in the last two years alone - and we support over 4,700 licensed facilities. 
• We’ve invested over $35 million since 2001 in capital funding, with nearly $7 million invested in First Nations communities.
• In Budget 2007, we provided $12.5 million for capital funding that has resulted or will result in:
  
  • Over 2,200 new licensed spaces by 2010 (surpassing the 2000 space goal).
  • Over 100 projects in 58 communities.
  • 68 group child care centres & 43 family child care centres, of which 10 will create or expand neighbourhood hubs, bringing the total number of hubs to 32.
    
• We partnered with BC Housing to create more than 200 child care spaces in existing or planned social housing developments, eliminating some of the barriers to child care, employment and schooling for vulnerable families.
  

Operating Costs

• Our child care operating budget is $64 million for 2008/09, funding more than 90,000 licensed spaces – 6,000 more than in 2001.
• We’ve invested $40 million since 2007 in quality enhancement grants for all licensed child care providers who receive operating subsidies. 
• We’re making an annual investment of $57 million in Supported Child Development, which provides consultation and support for 9000 children with special needs and their families to allow their inclusion in child care settings – an increase of 35 per cent since 2005/06.
  

Subsidy

• We provide $150 million provincial dollars annually in child care subsidies that benefit almost 50,000 children and 37,000 families.
• We increased the income threshold for applying for subsidy from $21,000 to $38,000 for families with children under the age of six.
• We increased the out of school care subsidy for children aged 6-12, benefiting over 13,000 children and 10,000 families.
• We increased subsidy rates for kindergarten children in 2005, and then kept those rates in place despite the cancellation of the federal Early Learning & Child Care Program in 2006.
  

Recruitment and retention of Early Childhood Educators (ECEs)

• We launched a loan assistance program providing up to $2,500 toward new graduates outstanding B.C. student loans.
• We also launched an incentive grant program providing up to $5000 for ECEs to return to the sector.

BC NDP releases platform - what does it say about child care?

Here is what is included about child care in the newly released BC NDP platform:

Carole James and the NDP will create more affordable and accessible child care spaces for
families by:
• Capping fees.
• Improving recruitment and retention, and enhancing training of teachers and early
childhood education professionals.
• As finances permit, introducing all-day kindergarten for 5-year-olds and the accompanying
after school care. This will free up 10,000 spaces within existing group child care centres
and family child care providers.
• Creating targets and timelines to build an affordable, accessible, quality child care system.