A renewed model for oversight and support of all home child-care providers would ensure that our society’s youngest and most vulnerable people have access to safe and higher-quality home child care.
They’re among the lowest-paid in the country but are working many hours unpaid to meet the demands of accreditation. With 73% wanting to leave the profession in the next three years, change is needed.
‘Purposeful play’ could look like children gaining opportunities to develop fine motor skills and cognitive abilities through talking about their inquiry and pursuits.
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Communicating clearly with children and providing space for them to play will be vital during back-to-school and beyond as children manage stressors associated with COVID-19.
The Sept. 20 election call may place Canada’s long-awaited national child-care plan at risk.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick
We enter this election with eight signed child-care agreements and question marks over the fate of those deals if the Liberal’s gamble on a majority government fails.
Beyond the many known benefits of outdoor education, COVID-19 has highlighted the outdoors as an environment which mitigates the risk of spreading airborne viruses.
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Planning outdoor early learning and child care has implications for training and recruiting educators as well as for planning, developing and funding physical spaces.
Treating children’s mental health symptoms, even without a diagnosis, can be beneficial.
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Not every child with mental health difficulties has a diagnosis. An approach that focuses on symptoms rather than diagnostic labels can help support children who could benefit from treatment.
Going to pre-school consolidates language skills and aids children’s emotional development.
MBI / Alamy Stock Photo
Not being able to attend nurseries due to lockdown has affected children’s growth in emotional, linguistic and physical terms. The longterm effect could heighten inequality
A study of children playing outdoors in child care settings found they were most active within the first 10 minutes of outdoor play.
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Beyond addressing key staffing issues, developing high-quality early childhood programs must involve using school boards to expand access and grow spaces while offering more affordable fees.
Literacy is much like learning to ride a bike: young kids can only advance to “tricks” when they learn how to balance a number of other complex and inter-related activities.
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The 2021-22 budget includes funding for 15 hours per week of free preschool education for all children in the year before school. This is great, but we need more detail.
High-quality preschools are both play-based and academic.
Evelyn Hockstein/For The Washington Post via Getty Images
An early childhood education expert explains what’s in the proposal and why it’s not really a partisan issue.
In Québec, the biggest child care provider by far is schools. Here, children raise their hands at a care centre in Montréal in August 2006.
CP PHOTO/Ian Barrett
As provinces and territories beyond Québec develop early learning and care plans, they should be aware of the pitfalls of taking shortcuts in response to parent demand.
Child care and preschool are a strain on family budgets.
Matt Roth for The Washington Post via Getty Images
Canada has an opportunity to become a world leader in early childhood education. With monumental federal support, this is the time to build a sustainable and relevant early education system.
A crossing guard stops traffic as students arrive at École Woodward Hill Elementary School, in Surrey, B.C., Feb. 23, 2021.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck
Comprehensive early childhood education, mental health support, internet connectivity and post-secondary funding are part of reducing the consequences of poverty so all students may excel.
Montréal father Dominic Desilets walks his daughter Benedicte to daycare on a rainy morning on Oct. 26, 2020.
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Child care in Canada needs a major overhaul to improve working conditions for educators by increasing pay and investing in training and professional development opportunities.
Adjunct Professor, Department of Applied Psychology and Human Development at Ontario Institute for the Study of Education (OISE) and Senior Policy Fellow at the Atkinson Centre, University of Toronto
Professor, Canada Research Chair in Determinants of Child Development, Owerko Centre at the Alberta Children’s Hospital Research Institute, University of Calgary