Building a Community Architecture for Early Childhood Learning and Care

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Building a Community Architecture for Early
Childhood Learning and Care

• Name of your organization
• and town or city go here

SESSION THREE
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• Visioning a comprehensive service model

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Reflections
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Our blue print will help to answer

• What would a system of early learning and child
  care look like for children, parents and
  communities?
• How can we organize existing community resources
  to serve as a strong foundation for new
  investments?
• What are the components of a comprehensive,
  integrated system of quality early childhood
  learning and child care?

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Suggest an organizational model that

• Provides children with quality early learning
  opportunities at the same time as parents are
  supported to work/study and parent effectively
• Is accountable to governments and communities
• Makes efficient use of public resources
• Improves outcomes for children, families and
  communities  

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Outcomes and Barriers

• 1st , we seek agreement on the outcomes for
  children, families and communities that we expect
  from public investments in early learning and
  child care.
• Later, we identify the various barriers that
  impede the development of integrated services
• and plan for how to overcome them.

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Our work together

• Building a system
• Parent participation
• Accessing services
• Staff qualifications
• Organizing services-Who does what?
• Service operations
• Funding services-What is the best funding mix?

• Quality-Whose job will it be to ensure it?
• Outcomes-What do we expect from public
  investments in early learning and child care?
• Accountability-how will government be accountable
  to the community? How will our model be
  accountable to government?

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Blue Sky Thinking

• Forget what weve got
• lets envision an early education and family
  support infrastructure that meets all of our
  ideals

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Blue Sky Building a system

• What activities do early learning and child care
  program provide for children?
• Describe the children who participate in the
  program.
• What is the criteria for participation?

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Blue Sky Parent participation

• Are there activities for parents/caregivers?
  Describe them.
• Describe the parents who participate.
• What is the criteria for their participation?
• Are parents encouraged to participate? How?

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Blue Sky Accessing Services

• How would a parent find out about our services?
• Describe the enrolment process.
• How would a parent who needs additional resources
  access them?
• Where are services located?

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Blue Sky Staff qualifications

• What qualifications are needed to work with young
  children and families?
• Is an new early years credential required that
  contains these qualifications?

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Blue Sky Organizing services

• How should the new system be managed?
• What functions would the systems manager perform?

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Blue Sky Who does what?
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Blue Sky Service operations

• Who should operate early learning and care
  services?
• Primarily publicly operated?
• Primarily community operated?
• Employers?
• A mix?
• How would private operators be treated during the
  transition period?

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Trade Implications-something to think about

• The trade implications of any new pan-Canadian
  child care system are more relevant than ever
  with the news that two of the USs largest
  commercial child care chains merged.
• Portland, Oregon-based KinderCare and Golden,
  Colorado-based Knowledge Learnings merger
  created a giant company with 1,980 centres
  serving more than 200,000 children and employing
  45,000 workers.
• Expansion into Canada is expected as the two
  countries economies continue to integrate.

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The funding pie

• Until recently, public spending in Canada
  totalled 3.53-billion
• 1.9-billion for regulated child care
• 1.5-billion for kindergarten
• 138.5-million in direct federal spending for
  aboriginal child care
• Parents pay 50 of overall national spending on
  child care services

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The funding pie contd

• Currently, kindergarten is free across Canada
• Junior kindergarten is free in Ontario
• The You Bet I Care! study shows wide variance of
  parent fees for childcare across Canada, but
  averaged out, Canadian parents assume about 50
  of the full cost of our child care system
• In many places this is more than a year at
  university

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More in the pie?

• What federal funding programs exist?
• The Early Childhood Development Initiative
  provides 500-million annually.
• The Multi-lateral Agreement on Early Learning and
  Child Care provides 350-million annually
• The federal/provincial/territorial child care
  agreements provide 1-billion annually until
  March 2007.
• All of these agreements look to
  provincial/territorial governments reporting to
  their publics as the key accountability
  mechanism.
• CAP-C and CNCP programs with provincial
  agreement.
• Aboriginal Head Start and on-reserve child care
  programs.

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Sounds great, right?

• While this public investment is essential, and we
  need more, how these public funds are invested is
  also critical.
• Effective child care systems can only exist in
  the presence of a strong public policy framework.
  
• In order to achieve the child care goals of
  tomorrow, we need to invest new funds
  appropriately starting today.

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Blue Sky Funding services

• What is the best funding mix?
• All federal/provincial funding?
• Do local governments pay a share?
• If there is a co-fee for parents, how much would
  it be?
• What about those families who can not afford even
  modest fees?

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Blue Sky Quality

• What do we consider good quality early learning
  and child care services?
• Who should be responsible for promoting quality?
  How?

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Blue Sky Outcomes

• What do we expect from public investments in
  early learning and child care?
• For children
• For parents
• For our community
• How should outcomes be established?

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Blue Sky Accountability

• How can governments be held accountable?
• How should our community and parents be involved?
• How can service providers be held accountable?
• For the quality of the program?
• For the funding received?
• For meeting goals?

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Closing Conversation

• What did you do today?
• What surprised you? Pleased you? Challenged you?
• What insights did you gain today?
• How will you use this information? How will you
  share this with others?

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Next Time

• We will review our blue sky vision
• And begin to see the shape our community
  architecture is taking
• We will focus on the barriers, or challenges to
  implementation, that block us
• Think about the differences between what we have
  and what we want
• Talk to colleagues, families, employers and
  others
• What are the gaps and barriers we will need to
  address?