Work. Family. Life.

What are the issues that bring people to this blog? Many!

Below is a list of the key words that people have searched for in recent weeks and months to arrive at this blog.  These are not listed in order of relevance, rather I have placed them in alphabetical order so as to see similar items grouped together where possible.  It is interesting to see the range of items that attract people to this site.

"Early Childhood Educators Loan Assistance Program "
"early intervention" speech
"Kellie Leitch" Globe and Mail
"Mary Polak"
"patti bacchus, chair"
"sadaf parvaiz"
"Victoria Sopik"
(http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/ewh-semt/pubs/occup-travail/balancing_six-equilibre_six/index-eng.php
(vancouver) secure status
+kindergarten +ontario +"full day" +ece
$10 billion in education grants
20
2009 call for proposals in Canada
2009 evaluation of parental leave
2009 statistics stay at home moms
2010 all day kindergarten ontario
2010 full day kindergarten bc
2010 new members list contact of Abbotsford Farm and Country Market @hotmail.com
2010 ontario full time program kindergarten
2010 parental leave extended in canada
2010-2011 kindergarten program full days ontario
3185 Willingdon Green Burnaby, BC
4 year olds in school by 2010 (BC)
5 years old kindergarten will begin to be delivered in schools throughout British Columbia in Sept,
a healthy work environment
accessing early maternity leave benefits in bc
According to the recent HELP (UBC) report commissioned by the Business Council of BC, "BC has a six
actionplan.gc.ca
advantages of New Brunswick’s New Brunswick’s International Strategy
Alberta bc requirements for working at child care services
alberta child care certification for foreign trained people
alberta child care regulations
Alberta licensed day care balance sheet
all day kindergarten + bc
all day kindergarten 2010
all day kindergarten 2010 in BC
all day kindergarten bc
all day kindergarten bc october 28 2009
all day kindergarten ontario
all day kindergarten ontario oct 2009
all day kindergqrten bc 2010

With full-day kindergarten, McGuinty builds a legacy

But with full-day kindergarten, the initiative at the heart of the early learning plan, Mr. McGuinty has found his sweet spot - a policy that he desperately wants to be remembered for, and one that future governments will find very difficult to make Ontarians forget.

"It's not the only test," Mr. McGuinty said in an interview last month. "But one important test of public policy is, do I think that anybody would seek to undo this. I find it hard to see somebody seeking to undo this."

He has a point, although it's open for debate whether that's a question of public policy or public opinion.

It remains to be seen, a long ways down the road, whether the early education gurus Mr. McGuinty cited yesterday (among them Fraser Mustard and Margaret McCain) are correct that putting four- and five-year-olds in school for the entire day will pave the way for a brighter future. What's clearer is that it will make the lives of many working parents a great deal easier, and that very few of them are going to be clamouring for the government to make their lives harder again.

via www.theglobeandmail.com

Canadian professional development opportunities in early learning and care

Below is a list of sites that outline upcoming professional development opportunities for the early learning and care field.  This posting is a work in progress; with more info being added over the next few weeks and months.  If you know of additional training opportunities please leave a comment and link.

British Columbia

BC Aboriginal Child Care Society - Annual Conference Page

BC Family Child Care Association - Events Page

Westcoast Child Care Resource Centre - Training Page

Child Care Options - Training Page

ECEBC - Conference 2010 Page

HELP - Human Early Learning Partnership - Events Page

Alberta

Alberta Child Care Association - Events Page

Manitoba

Manitoba Child Care Association - Events Page and Fall Workshop Page

New Brunswick

Early Childhood Care and Education - Training Page

PEI

Early Childhood Development Association of PEI - Events Page

National

Child Care Resource and Research Unit - Events Page

Canadian Child Care Federation - Events Page

Ont. won't have all-day kindergarten for all 4-and 5-yr-olds until 2015: source

TORONTO — Premier Dalton McGuinty will announce Tuesday that it will take Ontario five years to phase in a much-touted plan to offer all-day kindergarten for all four-and five-year-olds, The Canadian Press has learned.

Some 35,000 kids - about 16 per cent of the eligible junior and senior kindergarten students in the education system - will be offered full-day learning next September, but the program will be fully implemented across the province by 2015, a government source said.

That will put it behind British Columbia, which plans to make full-day kindergarten for all five-year-olds by 2011.

via www.google.com

Help us build an online community on Full Day Kindergarten in Canada

Looking for info on Full Day Kindergaten? 

This is the place to visit!

BC, PEI and Ontario are now working on the development and launch of Full Day Kindergarten as part of the public education system.  WFL is working with several colleagues from across Canada to develop this new site and we are in the process of uploading info and resources.  We really need your help!

Help Us Link Resources

If you have suggestions for links and resources please email them to info@fulldaykindergaten.ca.  We welcome info from across the Country.  

Help Us Facilitate Discussion

We are looking for volunteers from across Canada to help us blog about the key issues in each Province and Territory regarding Kindergarten, Early Learning and Full Day Kindergarten.  If you feel that you can assist us with this please send an email your contact info as well as a summary of your qualifications to info@fulldaykindergarten.ca

Please tell your friends and colleagues, blog about this and Tweet about it.  We really need a centralized place that parents and educators can find info and resources easily and can also discuss the many issues related to the move toward Full Day Kindergarten.  Help us build Canada's first and foremost Full Day Kindergarten Community!

How much will full day learning for four and five year olds cost?

From CBC News Website - June 15, 2009

Premier Dalton McGuinty admits it will take longer than planned to implement full-day learning for four- and five-year-olds in Ontario.

McGuinty said Monday the government has allocated $500 million over two years to start phasing in optional all-day kindergarten in 2010.

For the most part, junior kingergarten and senior kindergarten currently run half a day.

The premier admits the plan likely won't be fully implemented in three years as recommended because of the faltering economy, and says he doesn't know how much it will cost.

When pressed, McGuinty said he didn't know the total cost, but admitted it would be "a lot of money."

'A lot of parents are right now running all over the place trying to patch together services they need for their kids and their families.'—Charles Pascal, Ontario government's early learning adviser

McGuinty also says teachers will have to work alongside early childhood education specialists, an idea teachers unions have balked at in the past.

Charles Pascal, the government's early learning adviser, recommends that full-day learning programs for preschoolers start in lower-income neighbourhoods.

McGuinty says that will help address the government's anti-poverty strategy and give children a stronger start to their education.

"This is a good program. I think it is very progressive. I think it is going to put us at the forefront internationally. We give our kids all the opportunities that they need, especially in their early years. And that's the strongest guarantor of a strong economy."

What we do

Just developed a new one page bio sheet that summarizes the type of work that we are currently doing in relation to work-life flexibility, employee wellbeing, child care, community partnerships, education and more. You can download it below.

Download Jane Boyd - One Page Bio 2009

Putting culture in the hands of children

From Ottawa Citizen Article:

It is probably the only day care in Ottawa that encourages kids to play with knives.

The unique Tumiralaat Inuit Childcare Centre had its official opening Friday in an afternoon of Inuit culture, throat singing and thanksgiving.

The knives are ulus -- wooden-handled, semi-circular blades that are traditionally used to skin and dice fish. Here, they are blunted and children use them to sculpt modelling clay.

The Tumiralaat, or "Little Feet," centre, has been open since mid-July. Operated by the Ottawa Inuit Children's Centre, the day care, at 224 McArthur St., ensures that urban Inuit children don't lose touch with their cultural heritage.

It is the only day care of its kind in Canada.

Updates from Ontario and New Brunswick in Child Care News

From the Child Care Resource and Research Unit this week:

Building a strong and equal partnership between childcare and early childhood education in Canada

Split early childhood education and childcare systems (ECEC) have historically been a common phenomenon, but today many countries are moving towards more coherent approaches to ECEC. Canada, however, has continued to maintain a divided ECEC situation. Reviewing Canada’s ECEC in 2004, the OECD suggested that greater integration of kindergarten and childcare would bring real advantages. In 2007, Ontario, Canada’s largest province, began to develop integrated “full-day early learning” for all four and five year olds. In the initial phase, several key challenges have emerged: first, merging the public kindergarten system with market-driven childcare; second, financing the new program; third, maintaining stability in user-pay childcare as four and five year olds move to the new program; fourth, determining staffing models, bridging differences between kindergarten and childcare staff; and fifth, managing the phase-in. How Ontario meets these challenges will have major implications for the future of ECEC programs across Canada.

This article is published in the International Journal of Child Care and Education Policy by the Korea Institute of Child Care and Education (KICCE). KICCE is a Korean national research institute established with an integrative and systematic approach to policy research on early childhood care and education.

Be ready for success: A 10 year early childhood strategy for New Brunswick

In the first year, several new investments will be made as part of Early Childhood Strategy Action Plan, 2008-2009, including:

• an increase in child-care subsidies for low-income parents;
• increased funding to support the recruitment and retention of specialized personnel who provide services to preschool children with autism spectrum disorders;
• increased funding for integrated daycare and early intervention services for at-risk preschool children;
• enhanced day-care support for families leaving social assistance for paid employment, or making the transition to work;
• hiring eight new community-based early learning specialists to provide guidance and support to regulated child-care facilities, preschool programs, family resource centres and parents with young children;
• new funding for family resource centres working with at-risk children and families to expand outreach services and increase parenting programs and services;
• increased funding to support special-needs children who require a support worker while attending a child-care facility;
• an increase in wages for regulated child-care staff to build on previous wage enhancements;
• implementation of an early childhood development community mapping model to provide government and communities with information to identify needs, to service gaps, and to assess the effectiveness of programs and services; and
• build on the existing public awareness campaign on the benefits of quality child-care and early learning experiences for preschool children.

In addition, a $13.7-million Early Learning and Child Care Trust Fund has been established to provide training for child-care workers, develop and implement a new early learning and child-care curriculum, and provide financial incentives for the creation of new child-care spaces in the province.

A new early learning and child-care curriculum will also be implemented in all regulated child-care facilities in New Brunswick by September 2009. The French and English experience-based curriculum was developed by the University of New Brunswick and the Université de Moncton.