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August 25, 2014

8/25/2014

BC: Early Childhood Education has Great Value but Little
Reward
Source: The Globe and Mail, August 18, 2014
“The most difficult thing about this job is that it isn’t treated as if it has much value. … People are doing this incredibly meaningful, hard work, and they are making a pittance. That really wears on people in their field; we lose a lot of good people because of that.”

August 14th, 2014

8/14/2014

In an increasingly market-driven Canada, it should not be surprising that profit-making services are still part of the child-care landscape. Child care should be a public good to benefit all. Read the full article - The case against for-profit ‘big box’ child care.

Child Care: It's Everyone's Issue. Excerpt: "Almost 70 percent of mothers with children under five are working, yet Canada lacks a national child care system. For many families, child care is the second highest expense after housing. In Ontario, families pay between $40 and $60 a day for child care, compared to $7 a day in Quebec; There are currently over 3,800 families on the waitlist for subsidized care in Durham Region; Quebec’s child care program increased the number of women in the workforce by 3.8 percent and boosted the province’s GDP by 1.7 percent." Visit http://www.weareoshawa.ca/press_release for full article.

August 8, 2014

8/8/2014

Forest Schools are not new but they have been in the news more lately. Science is showing us that there are some very real benefits to brain development associated with being outside and connected to the natural world around us. CBC Victoria is the source of the following interview titled ‘Outdoor Kindergartens are Cropping Up Everywhere’ from Victoria BC to access it click here.

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Webinars on ASD Autism Ontario presents an Online Webinar Series on different Autism Spectrum Disorder
(ASD) topics for parents, professionals, and educators.

These webinars can be watched via computer ‘live’ or ‘recorded’ and are presented in a friendly, discussion-based format. Topics cover educational advocacy, resources to support a child with ASD in school, gain tools to fight bullying, strategies to navigate the health system and many others. To access any of the webinars, please visit www.autismontario.com and click on the webinar link on the left-hand side of the navigation toolbar. Autism Research Institute (ARI) also offers free Autism Education Webinars and Events for parents and professionals. August’s Topic: Inclusion For more information click here

July 4, 2014

7/7/2014

New information regarding the Continuous Professional Learning (CPL) plan from the College of Early Childhood Educators has been released this week. To read the release please click here. For more information about the CPL framework please click here. To directly connect to the CECE website please click here.
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The Liberals have committed to re-introducing
all 28 bills that died when the election was called May 2, which includes the Fair Minimum Wage Act, the Invasive Species Act, the Child Care Modernization Act, a bill to ban paid blood donations, and the Accountability Act. To read the full article please click here.

Election Update

5/21/2014

Early childhood education and child care in the 2014 Ontario election

Who'll make the grade on child care?
Parents, activists to issue "report card" for party leaders before June 12 vote

TORONTO, ONTARIO--(Marketwired - May 20, 2014) - Years of starts, shifts and cuts, add up to inadequate public funding and ineffectual provincial policy by successive governments. It's time for this situation to end, say a group of parents, early childhood educators and activists who, this election are challenging party leaders to "make the grade on child care".

During this election campaign, Ontario families who need child care so they can work, retrain and attend school, are looking for the parties seeking to form government to commit to a package of immediate, short-term and long-term remedies outlined last week at a media conference outside Queen's Park.

"We're listening carefully for the right answers and grading the party leaders on their efforts and commitment to improve access to licensed child care and to stabilize existing programs. There will be a report card letting voters know who made the grade and who failed," says Brooke Richardson, a mother of three and one of the parent members of the group.

So far none of the party leaders are off to a rousing start. Report card marks are dismal, ranging from mediocre Ds for the NDP and the Liberals to downright failure for Hudak and the PCs.

While both the Liberals and the NDP reiterated old policy planks, neither put forward a long-term plan including goals, targets and timetables to build a system. Neither made a commitment to provide $300 million in funding to keep child care centres from closing.

As for the Progressive Conservatives (PCs) in response to questions from media, Tim Hudak equated investments in licensed child care to incurring credit card debt. He also said he would cut staffing in full day kindergarten in half as part of
massive overall education cuts.

"The Hudak PCs get an F. Over all there is much room for improvement," says Richardson.

The child care report card will be made available early in June, well before election day on June 12.

Party leaders asked to commit to a 6-point plan for early learning and child care

The Association of Early Childhood Educators Ontario, Canadian Union of Public Employees Ontario), Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care, Childcare Resource and Research Unit and Advocates for Progressive Child Care Policy are calling on the leaders of Ontario's three main political parties to respond to concerns about the state of early childhood education and child care by committing, if elected,
to six key elements toward a strategy that will begin to fix early
childhood education and child care in Ontario.

Open Letter to the leaders of Ontario's three main political
parties

The Childcare Research and Resource Unit(CRRU) has selected materials from the political parties, NGOs and news media to explain how ECEC is positioned in this election campaign. CRRU will continue to update this page as new developments occur.

Related News
Ontario need a good child care strategy

Editorial - Toronto Star, May 13, 2014

Despite Premier Kathleen Wynne's $269-million budget proposal for a $2-an-hour boost to day-care workers' wages, and Horwath's promise to spend $100 million on the centres, no leader is talking about a long-term strategy for survival for the struggling $900-million system.

Parents need child care to work, party leaders told

Toronto Star, May 9, 2014

Parents, daycare workers and early childhood educators want party leaders to commit to raising wages of chronically low-paid child-care staff and to make an emergency investment of $300 million to prevent more daycares from closing, said Andrea
Calver of the Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care.

Ontario election: Horwath vows $100M to support
childcare centres

Toronto Star, May 11, 2014

NDP leader Andrea Horwath says licensed child care needs an immediate one-time cash infusion of $100 million in order to keep centres open. Meanwhile, PC leader Tim Hudak suffered another campaign gaffe.

May 2, 2014

5/5/2014

To support the release of the document “How Does Learning Happen? Ontario’s Pedagogy for the Early Years”, the Ontario Ministry of Education has scheduled a webinar for May 13, 2014 from 1 – 3 PM. The PRC will have limited spaces for viewing this webinar in our resource centre. More information will follow on how you can watch this in your own homes, or
workplaces. Please watch the next Friday message for more
details.
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The Ontario Ministry of Labour recently announced the new Occupational Health and Safety Act (OHSA) Regulation for Occupational Health and Safety Awareness Training, which lays out the basic Occupational Health and Safety training
requirements for workers and supervisors. This mandatory training will be enforced July 1, 2014 for all workers and supervisors in Ontario.
To access the no-cost training materials and information on the
regulation, please click here.

Factsheet
File Size:	564 kb
File Type:	pdf

Download File

April 25, 2014

5/5/2014

The Ontario Ministry of Education has released “How Does
Learning Happen? Ontario’s Pedagogy for the Early Years”. Please find the enclosed memo. To link to the official document please click here.
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To help recruit and retain workers by providing fairer wages,
Ontario is proposing an increase of an average of two dollars per hour for early childhood educators and other front-line child care workers. The first increase will be an average of one dollar per hour and will start January 2015. To read the full press release from the Ontario government click here.

Related Articles of interest:

Government of Ontario, April 22, 2014: News Release - Ontario Giving Kids the Best Possible
Start, Province Increasing Ontario Child Benefit, Improving the Quality of Child Care
AECEO, April 22, 2014: AECEO Responds to Wage Increase Announcement
Toronto Star, April 22, 2014: Ontario Liberals Vow to Index Child Benefit and Boost Daycare Wages
CBC News, April 22, 2014: Ontario Child Benefit Increases to be Tied to Inflation
CUPE Ontario, April 22, 2014: Wage Raise for ECEs and Child Care Workers Long-Overdue, but Province Must do More to Stabilize Child Care, Keep Centres from Closing

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The Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services is seeking feedback on the proposed changes to the Ontario Fire Code.

The proposed changes are consistent with the advice received
through the release of the Modernizing Child Care in Ontario: Sharing Conversations, Strengthening Partnerships, Working Together discussion paper in 2012. This included harmonizing the requirements for licensed child care providers through a modernized legislative and regulatory framework.

All parties are encouraged to participate in this process by
providing feedback on the proposed regulatory changes. Instructions on how to provide comments are included in the posting summary available on Ontario's Regulatory Registry. For more information please click here.

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