The early learning and child care sector is evolving in increasingly complex and challenging environments. Identifying innovative practices and solutions that better meet the needs of children and families will improve early learning and child care for the benefit of children and families in Canada.
Today, the Minister of Families, Children and Social Development, Karina Gould, was in Vancouver to announce funding for two projects through the Early Learning and Child Care Innovation Program.
The University of British Columbia is receiving a total of $1,294,439 in federal funding over 24 months, starting in April 2022, for their project titled PROmoting Early Childhood Outside (PRO-ECO). In partnership with 10 early learning and child care sites in Greater Vancouver, the University of British Columbia will research the effectiveness of outdoor play intervention. This project aims to create a locally guided and sustainable method for enhancing outdoor play environments that will be scalable to other early learning and child care centres across Canada.
The Mothers Matter Centre is receiving a total of $2,374,455 in federal funding over 24 months, starting in April 2022, for their project titled Safe-space for Early Learning Foundation (SELF). This project will focus on training staff and adapting programs with the aim to provide high-quality early learning services to vulnerable and isolated children living with their mothers in second-stage transitional shelters in Saskatchewan, Ontario, Newfoundland and Labrador, and British Columbia. This project will ensure that vulnerable and isolated children have the care they deserve so they can grow and learn in an environment that is healthy for them.
The Government of Canada is committed to supporting the improvement of early learning and child care service delivery for all families in Canada and their children. These projects will help transform child care in Canada, to better support children and parents now, and for generations to come.. The results achieved will contribute to a pool of knowledge and expertise, such as best practices, tools, models and approaches that will have the potential to be replicated, scaled and adapted in other communities and regions across Canada.
Since 2015, the Government of Canada has delivered real improvements to make life more affordable coast to coast to coast, including making a historic investment of up to $27 billion over five years to build a Canada-wide early learning and child care system in collaboration with provincial, territorial and Indigenous partners. This investment allows governments to work together toward achieving an average parent fee of $10-a-day by March 2026 for licensed child care spaces, starting with a 50% fee reduction on average for licensed early learning and child care spaces by the end of 2022.
