Work. Family. Life.

Get kids learning early, or pay later, say experts

B.C. should follow Ontario by implementing early learning classes or suffer heavy social and economic damage down the road.

That was the message from experts at an early care conference at SFU's Wosk Centre for Dialogue on Tuesday -- the same day that Ontario passed a bill to implement North America's first full-day early learning classrooms for four-and five-year-olds.

Dr. Charles Pascal, special adviser on early learning to Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty, told conference delegates "there is a big social and economic payoff" in investing in early learning.

University of B.C. Prof. Paul Kershaw presented his new study on "developmentally vulnerable" children, which shows 29 per cent enter kindergarten in B.C. at a learning disadvantage. The study calls for a $3-billion per year investment in early learning and support of young families in B.C.

Vulnerable children come up short in 104 benchmark tests taken in kindergarten, measuring physical, social, emotional and language skills.

The vulnerable "are much more likely to enter the criminal justice system," suffer poor health, drop out of school and underperform in Canada's economy, Kershaw said.

Kershaw calculates that neglecting to reduce the "child vulnerability debt" will cause B.C. to forgo 20 per cent in GDP growth over the next 60 years, which amounts to trillions of dollars wasted.

The study followed 140,000 children from across B.C. over 10 years.

via www.theprovince.com

Join us for Caring Coast to Coast on May 6, 2010 @ Confed Centre of the Arts

 
A new project, focused on supporting employees who juggle work and caregiving responsibilities, launches on May 6, 2010 in Charlottetown. The project entitled, “Winning Strategies to Support Caregivers in the Workplace”, will be announced at the project’s first event, “Caring Coast to Coast”.  The event will be held at Confederation Centre of the Arts in Studio 1 from 9:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. and will be opened by Verna Bruce, Past Associate Deputy Minister of Veteran Affairs Canada and recipient of the 2008 PEI  Lieutenant Governor's Award for Excellence in Public Administration.  The half day session will be held in an “open space” format allowing opportunities for participants to engage in open dialogue about the realities of managing the issues related to work and caregiving.

Last month, President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama hosted the White House Forum on Workplace Flexibility .  Using the perspective of not only supporting employees who have caregiving responsibilities outside of work but one of economic necessity, our neighbours to the south have placed a national priority around creating more flexibility within workplaces. John Berry, Director of Personnel Management for the federal government, said, “Flexibility is the new email.  There are those employers that have it, and there are those that will.”  The time has come to understand and address the realities of employees who are stressed and overloaded. The Canadian Caregiver Coalition estimates that 4-5 million Canadians struggle to balance work and caregiving for a family member who is in need of support because of age, disabling medical condition, chronic injury, long term illness or disability. “Winning Strategies to Support Caregivers in the Workplace” will view these issues through both an economic and humanitarian lens. When employees and employers work together to resolve work and life issues, there are significant improvements to customer satisfaction, employee engagement and the bottom line.

Project Coordinator, Jane Boyd, couldn’t be more pleased with the team she has put in place for this project. She states that, “Collectively, our team has over 50 years of experience related to work life issues traversing across family, childcare, eldercare, health and human resources.”  Boyd has been actively involved in the early learning field and family related policy on the Island since 2007.  She is particularly pleased to have Rob Paterson, a leading advisor on social networks and on how human culture operates, serving as a project advisor. Based in PEI, his work flows between organizational design, research and the web 2.0 world. Paterson is pleased to be involved in this innovative project. He says, “The stage is set to utilize social networks and technology in gaining a national perspective around the issues and solutions for Canadian’s juggling work and caregiving responsibilities.” Paterson goes on to state, “Our hope is that we engage the hearts and minds of employers and employees as we venture on this journey of discovery. This journey will encompass the value of social media, collaborative stories and action.” In addition, the project's research partner, University of Guelph’s Centre for Families Work and Wellbeing, will be pivotal in ensuring that the discoveries are solid and useful in creating a less stressful experience for Canadian’s who provide care while employed. The Centre for Families Work and Wellbeing has already conducted extensive research in this area. In addition, they are very familiar with international best practice around this issue.

Members of the Project Team Include:

Jane Boyd - Project Co-ordinator

Dr. Carol Matusicky - Engagement Co-ordinator

   Wendy Creelman - Marketing Co-ordinator

   Robert Paterson - Social Media Advisor

Funded in part by the Government of Canada’s Social Development Partnerships Program, this three year project will aim to support employers in becoming best practice employers around the dual roles faced by many Canadian’s. By engaging employers, employees and service providers, the hope is that the resulting conversation will create innovative workplace supports, tools and resources that will assist employees who face the dual role of work and caring for their children, elders and other family members.

To register or for more information, please e-mail caringcoasttocoast@gmail.com by May 3, 2010. Space is limited.  You can also learn more at our Caring Coast to Coast Facebook Page.

Are you ready to ride the change wave that is coming?

I have long suspected the traditional school model was not going to be the way of the future. How we live, learn, work and play is changing as we blog, write and speak. With so many things shifting in our communities, governments, businesses and economy it is clear that life as we know it will not remain the same.  I don't think it is all doom and gloom; but I do think that the world as we know it is changing in significant ways.  A project that I am currently working on is really showing me this. (More on that soon...) We are in the perfect storm....more and more we need to work together to understand what it all means. We need to be prepared to ride the demographic, economic and societal change wave that is coming.  What are you doing in your business, community and family?  What does living in the State of Now mean in relation to all of this? 

Via Rob is this article from Time.com

Rather than warehouse their children in factory schools invented to instill obedience in the future mill workers of America, bourgeois rebels will educate their kids in virtual schools tailored to different learning styles. Whereas only 1.5 million children were homeschooled in 2007, we can expect the number to explode in future years as distance education blows past the traditional variety in cost and quality. The cultural battle lines of our time, with red America pitted against blue, will be scrambled as Buddhist vegan militia members and evangelical anarchist squatters trade tips on how to build self-sufficient vertical farms from scrap-heap materials. To avoid the tax man, dozens if not hundreds of strongly encrypted digital currencies and barter schemes will crop up, leaving an underresourced IRS to play whack-a-mole with savvy libertarian "hacktivists."

Work and life will be remixed, as old-style jobs, with long commutes and long hours spent staring at blinking computer screens, vanish thanks to ever increasing productivity levels. New jobs that we can scarcely imagine will take their place, only they'll tend to be home-based, thus restoring life to bedroom suburbs that today are ghost towns from 9 to 5. Private homes will increasingly give way to cohousing communities, in which singles and nuclear families will build makeshift kinship networks in shared kitchens and common areas and on neighborhood-watch duty. Gated communities will grow larger and more elaborate, effectively seceding from their municipalities and pursuing their own visions of the good life. Whether this future sounds like a nightmare or a dream come true, it's coming.

This transformation will be not so much political as antipolitical. The decision to turn away from broken and brittle institutions, like conventional schools and conventional jobs, will represent a turn toward what military theorist John Robb calls "resilient communities," which aspire to self-sufficiency and independence. The left will return to its roots as the champion of mutual aid, cooperative living and what you might call "broadband socialism," in which local governments take on the task of building high-tech infrastructure owned by the entire community. Assuming today's libertarian revival endures, it's easy to imagine the right defending the prerogatives of state and local governments and also of private citizens — including the weird ones. This new individualism on the left and the right will begin in the spirit of cynicism and distrust that we see now, the sense that we as a society are incapable of solving pressing problems. It will evolve into a new confidence that citizens working in common can change their lives and in doing so can change the world around them.

We see this individualism in the rise of "freeganism" and in the small but growing handful of "cage-free families" who've abandoned their suburban idylls for life on the open road. We also see it in the rising number of high school seniors who take a gap year before college. While the higher-education industry continues to agitate for college for all, many young adults are stubbornly resistant, perhaps because they recognize that for a lot of them, college is an overpriced status marker and little else. In the wake of the downturn, household formation has slowed down. More than one-third of workers under 35 live with their parents.

The hope is that these young people will eventually leave the house when the economy perks up, and doubtless many will. Others, however, will choose to root themselves in their neighborhoods and use social media to create relationships that sustain them as they craft alternatives to the rat race. Somewhere in the suburbs there is an unemployed 23-year-old who is plotting a cultural insurrection, one that will resonate with existing demographic, cultural and economic trends so powerfully that it will knock American society off its axis.

Salam is a policy adviser at the nonpartisan think tank e21, a blogger for the National Review and a columnist for Forbes.com

via www.time.com

My favourite Canadian commercial released during Olympics - Welcome Home

Processed lunch products....a sign of a busy Fall....not a good thing

 

In my quest to manage an exceptionally hectic schedule this Fall I began premaking my kids lunches on the weekends.  With three kids in three different schools and my new very early morning routine I have discovered that there is less time in 24 hours than there used to be.  Interesting.

So...Week One and Two...the lunches were premade and packed up.  You know...the usual...juice boxes, fruit snacks, granola bars, etc.  In the mornings we simply added the extra items - fruit, sandwich etc.  It went well and I felt a bit more organized....a bit more in control....

Weeks Three and Four rolled around and it seems that I got busier. Much busier... I still made the lunches on the weekend - but I noticed that I started to add things like prepacked cheese and crackers (not real - but processed) and the fresher items were left out. 

Then, last week, as I was driving to one of my client's sites, I was suddenly hit by "guilty parent sydrome" with regard to my kid's nutrition.  How much real food had they consumed in the last few weeks?  What was the nutritional content of what they had been eating?  How much bad fat had they consumed?  Yikes...in that moment I began to feel really guilty.  Further, when I started to think about things like global warming, the economy and all that other "stuff" that we should be considering about the world these days I was feeling even worse.  Certainly, my kids lunches were not supporting much in terms of the local economy or local real food.  I was, however, in my own small way supporting the big box stores and their far off suppliers.

Wow...suffice to say - when I think about it now I am feeling rather unhealthy.  Over the years I have picked up a lot of awareness and ideas regarding the importance of healthy food, community and eating local from my friend and colleague Rob.  I support so much of what he talks about - yet here is the thing - the practice of actually doing it is harder to execute than one would imagine - especially if you are busy.

So - while I had a moment this weekend - I did some research on the internet.  I did find some local companies that I am considering supporting.  I also found some food packaging solutions for lunches that might help us out.  I have nothing to share yet as I am still in the research gathering phase -- but this does a bit to ease my guilty feelings. 

As I head off to the store this afternoon to do my purchasing for our Sunday family dinner I think I will visit my local farm market and the butcher - rather than the big box store.  It is a small step...for today.  Perhaps I will even find some ideas for our lunches next week.

Great resource for families in the Lower Mainland of BC

Have you read a copy of Westcoast Families?  If you are a parent this is a great resource that you should check out.  Free copies can be picked up from many locations.  You can also download a copy online.  A must read for all families.

Announcements of interest

The following announcements from the Province of Alberta and BC caught my eye this week:

Bill aims to improve governance of agencies, boards and commissions

Edmonton... Improving the effectiveness of Alberta’s agencies, boards and commissions is the focus of new legislation introduced in the Alberta Legislature today.

Bill 32, the Alberta Public Agencies Governance Act, promotes transparency, accountability, and good governance for the province’s nearly 250 agencies, boards and commissions.

New program makes paying child support easier - Bill 29 amends program to keep defaulters in line

Edmonton... A new way of calculating child support will make it easier and more affordable for separated parents to stay current on child support payments, while ensuring children receive the best support parents can offer when their financial situations change.

The Child Support Recalculation Program - which passed into law last fall - will annually recalculate child support orders based on changes in the parents’ income. This means parents do not have to go to court to have their support orders adjusted, thus saving them time, money and emotional strain.

Western provinces to work on new economic partnership, innovation, pension and crime reduction

Vancouver... Expanding trade, investment and job creation across the west, consideration of a new regional pension plan option and further cooperation on tackling gang violence highlighted the inaugural Alberta, British Columbia., Saskatchewan joint cabinet meeting today.

Giving parents a voice

In 2007, Richmond Children First received funding from Success by 6 for Parent Connectors, a project that provided training to parents with young children, under the age of 6 years, to help them link to other parents in the community.  One of the projects undertaken by the Parent Connectors in 2008 was to conduct a series of focus groups with parents.  The goals of this project were to:

• Identify the needs and issues of parent with children prenatal to 6 years old as related to the distribution of program materials on early child development programs.

• Identify barriers to access families face in accessing early child development programs.

• Build capacity among volunteer parents to connect with other parents and gather information through focus groups. 

• Inform early child development service providers on how they may better outreach and respond to the needs of parents in all aspects of diversity.

For more information on this project click HERE.

Child to parent - Is it time to talk finances?

The following article by Ron Leiber in the New York Times caught my eye this weekend.  With the almost daily difficult financial news it is important to consider how members of your family are holding up in the face of the current economic crisis.  Can you talk to your parents about their finances?  How are your own finances....are you struggling?  This article will give you some good ideas about how to connect so that you can figure out how to both approach and support each other.

But often, the grown children don’t know precisely how the devastation in the markets has affected their parents’ portfolio, and the older parents don’t know what their children’s monthly debt payments are.

None of this is fun to think about. And if you dare to open your mouth about it, relatives may take offense. Silence, however, is good for no one. You don’t want to be blindsided months or years from now by a family member in desperate straits, nor do you want to worry yourself sick when there’s no reason to.

Excellent reports out on employer models in ECEC & related employer issues

Supporting Employers in Canada ’s Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) Sector
The Child Care Human Resources Sector Council’s Supporting Employers in ECEC Project seeks to clearly define the range of employer models in Canada ’s ECEC sector and identify related human resource needs. As this 18-month project nears completion, two documents are now available that preview the research findings and shed light on the employer in Canada’s ECEC sector:

Preliminary Findings - October 2008: This document provides a summary of the preliminary research findings, including the results of the Employer Survey (completed by 987 employers across Canada), the literature review, focus groups, and key informant interviews.

Employer Models in Canada’s ECEC Sector: This document contains a series of 14 descriptive articles designed to bring ECEC governance models to life by exploring different programs and models from the employer perspective.

Working to give parents of young children in PEI a stronger voice

April Ennis and I have quietly been working away behind the scenes to develop a formal non profit organization for Parents for Choice and Quality.   Today we had a letter to the Editor in the Guardian (PEI) and we also opened up the new and revised website for the organization.  There is much more to come so stay tuned...

The mission of Parents for Choice and Quality Society is:

Parents for Choice and Quality envision a society where children and families have access to a comprehensive and coordinated range of high quality services that supports them in achieving their full potential.

What is worth more...an image of support or actual plans?

Excerpts reprinted from the San Francisco Chronicle by Jill Duerr Berrick

Sarah Palin has no doubt boosted John McCain's ratings in the polls. Long silent on the issue of family policy, Palin's mere presence on the Republican ticket speaks to American voters and implies a steadfast support for women, children and the American family. Hungry for a candidate who speaks to their issues, Americans have been captured by the symbolic blend of mother, family and politics.

As attractive as Palin's mother-of-five image may be, however, Americans should be wary. One woman's personal accomplishments should not be confused with the opportunities that might be afforded to millions of families if Barack Obama's proposed policies were implemented.

McCain lacks an articulated family-policy platform, a consistent view on women's issues, and a perspective on government's role vis-À-vis children beyond the walls of the schoolhouse.

Obama, on the other hand, has well-defined plans for tackling teenage pregnancy, expanding early-childhood education, improving child-support collection, and - importantly - supporting new families as they step into the uncertain terrain of parenthood.

The American family is a fragile institution. High rates of poverty, divorce, single parenthood and social isolation exaggerate the typical strains of parenting.

...

Against this backdrop, the United States provides few services to support new families. Unlike many European countries, we do not offer universal paid parental leave, universal child care, universal health care, or universal income supports. No one holds any illusions that either party's proposed policies would follow in the footsteps of our neighbors across the Atlantic. But we could do more.

...

Obama has a clear plan to expand home-visiting programs to low-income, new parents. The plan is hardly a wild, left-wing expansion of the welfare state. There is nothing universal about it, there is nothing intrusive about it (parents can accept or deny services at will), and there are few costs involved. Studies of the program show that if home visiting is implemented with care, cost savings may even accrue.

If elected, Obama's initial steps into the field of family policy would signal an important shift in federal policymaking. But it would provide more than a signal to low-income parents. For them and for their children, it might offer a real lifeline to a better future.

Washington, D.C., imagemakers recognize the power of political symbols. Palin has given the Republican Party the symbol it was seeking to communicate McCain's concern for America's children and families. But American voters should expect more than a political nod.

Palin's image won't help a single mother in the Mission District of San Francisco, a low-income couple in Antioch, or a 17-year-old mom in Oakland. American families know too well the challenges of raising children in today's complex society. Political symbols should be set aside; American parents need evidence-informed policies that offer concrete assistance to families.

(Jill Duerr Berrick is a professor of social welfare at UC Berkeley. Her new book, "Take Me Home: Protecting America's Vulnerable Children and Families," is available from Oxford University Press.)

Finding our way home - the importance of the family

Rob has an excellent post on the importance of family in relation to the changing economic times.

So in our pursuit of "freedom" we become slaves who rely on the state, our health plan, our investments, our line of credit, our pension. None of these things are in our control!

In reality, we have swapped the family for institutions! We have then become so busy in getting the money for the transactions that don't know how important relationships are. We have become incapable of knowing how to be in family so that it can support us.

 

Early childhood education, work-life balance and child care in the U.S. Federal election

Obama-Biden Campaign

Obama speaks on his plans for child care and other family friendly policies.

Obama speaks to Ellen about balancing work and family.

 

Obama speaks on what he would like to do to better support early learning and family supports.

 

Obama and Biden - Policy Platform on Early Childhood Education

Barack Obama’s plan for lifetime success through education

McCain-Palin Campaign

It is worth noting that after extensive searching on the internet I could find virtually no video where either McCain or Palin were speaking about the importance of the early years, child care or family policy.  Interesting....and worth noting.

Attack Ad on Obama re Kindergarten and Education

 

McCain-Palin - Policy Platform on Early Childhood Education

Palin speaks about balancing work and family

 

The importance of early learning and child care in the Canadian Federal Election

Below is a collection of party platform and video links regarding child care, early learning and family related issues in Canada.  This is a good summary to help you better understand what each party is proposing to support (or has supported) should their party make up the next Federal Government.

Conservatives

	Delivered choice and support to parents through the Universal Child Care Benefit: $1,200 per year in direct support for every child under six – over $3.7 billion in 2006 and 2007 to help parents with the cost of child care
	Invested $250 million per year to assist the provinces and territories in creating new child care spaces

No Platform/Policy Announced - Just this.

Child Care Choices and Spaces

 

Stephen Harper talks about what his government has done for families (found at min 2:45)

Conservative Ad on Family

Attack Ad on Stéphane Dion (Liberal) re Universal Child Care Benefit

Put out by the Conservatives 

(Here is the link to where the Liberal Party dismissed this claim)

NDP

NDP - Child Care Platform

• Enact the New Democrats' Early Learning and Child Care Act – which has already passed Second Reading in Parliament - to establish the program in law for the first time in Canada.

• Establish and adequately fund a Canada-wide child care and early learning program. We will make high quality, accessible, affordable, non-profit and licensed child care available to Canadian families, including aboriginal Canadians.

• These initiatives will create 150,000 new child care spaces in the first year, growing to 220,000 spaces per year in the fourth year.

• Ensure a healthy head start for kids. We will develop a Children's Nutrition Initiative to support and expand provincial and local programs that provide healthy meals to school children.

Jack Layton announced National Child Care Plan

Liberals

• A new Liberal government will allocate federal funds, increasing over a four-year period to help establish new agreements with the provinces and territories, to create new and improved quality spaces and increase accessibility for families across Canada.
• At full implementation, the federal investment will climb to $1.25 billion annually.
• Today’s announcement is in addition to a commitment that a new Liberal government will maintain the $100-a-month cheques that some families have come to rely on. We will also introduce a new refundable child tax credit worth $350 to families for every child under 18. A new Liberal government will also provide up to $1,225 per year to Canada’s poorest families through a new Guaranteed Family Supplement.

Ken Dryden speaks about child care

The Liberal response to the Conservative's claim that the Liberals will cancel the $1,200 Universal Child Care benefit.

The Liberal backgrounder on their child care announcement.

Bloc Party

I could not find any platform or video links specific to Early Childhood Education/child care.  Here is the link to their website.

Green Party

Elizabeth May speaks on child care and early childhood education (Found at minute 7:20). 

Link to Green party policy platform on child care