Early Childhood Development - Activities and Learning

1. Introduction

Federal/Provincial/Territorial Early Childhood Development Agreement

The Federal/Provincial/Territorial Early Childhood Development (ECD) Agreement has two clear objectives:

to promote early childhood development so that, to their fullest potential, children will be physically and emotionally healthy, safe and secure, ready to learn, and socially engaged and responsible; and
to help children reach their potential and to help families support their children within strong communities.

The Agreement focuses on children under six and their families.

To meet the above objectives, governments agreed on four key areas for action. They agreed to invest in any or all of the following areas, according to their own priorities:

promote healthy pregnancy, birth and infancy;
improve parenting and family supports;
strengthen early childhood development, learning and care; and
strengthen community supports.

Further information about the ECD Agreement can be found at www.socialunion.gc.ca and in Annex B and Annex C.

To give Canadians a clear idea of the progress being made, governments agreed to report annually on their investments in early childhood development programs and services, and to provide regular reports on how young children are doing. In fulfilling this commitment, they agreed to provide:

public "baseline" reports of early childhood development programs and expenditures prior to the ECD Agreement, against which new investments can be tracked;
annual public monitoring reports to help track progress in enhancing early childhood development programs and services, using a shared framework for reporting; and
regular public reports on young children's well-being, using a common set of outcome indicators.

To guide annual reporting, governments have agreed on a "shared framework" — a common set of principles and guidelines, and comparable indicators — to help ensure consistency in the type of information they provide to the public about their activities and investments through the ECD Agreement. The shared framework states that reports will include descriptive information about the programs as well as the agreed upon indicators: expenditures; availability, accessibility, affordability and quality. (For the full text of the Shared Framework for Reporting on Progress in Improving and Expanding ECD Programs and Services, see Annex B.)

The Government of Canada's Support for Young Children

Government of Canada's Direct Investments in Young Children

The Government of Canada has a long-term commitment to children and plays a leading role in providing a variety of early childhood development programs and services. These programs and services include early childhood development for children and families at-risk, including some for at-risk Aboriginal children living off reserve; social, health and economic programs for First Nations and Inuit children and families; research, information and public education; and early childhood development.

As well as the activities described in this report, the Government of Canada makes significant contributions to the health and well-being of young children through several other programs. The Canada Health and Social Transfer (CHST) supports provincial and territorial government expenditures in the areas of health care, social assistance, social services and post-secondary education. A significant portion of health care funding under the CHST directly supports young children-especially during pregnancy and early infancy which are periods of high health care need. In addition, young children and their families may access a range of provincial and territorial social services funded through the CHST. The Government of Canada also contributes to the health and well-being of children through various income support and tax measures which benefit families and children of all ages, and through support for non-governmental organizations.

The federal budget, February 2003, announced a number of new investments in young children and families.

It introduced a long-term investment plan that will increase benefits for low-income families under the National Child Benefit by $965 million per year by 2007, bringing the maximum annual benefit for a family with two children to $6,260.
It introduced a new Child Disability Benefit of up to $1,600 annually to help low- and modest-income families meet the challenges of raising a severely disabled child.
It announced $900 million over five years to support provincial and territorial investment in affordable, quality early learning and child care programs and services and an additional $35 million over five years to build on federal early learning and child care programs for First Nations children, primarily on reserves.

Federal Transfers in Support of Provincial and Territorial Government Early Childhood Development Investments

The Government of Canada makes a major contribution in support of the ECD Agreement to help provincial and territorial governments better support young children in their communities. In 2002-2003, the Government of Canada transferred $400 million to provinces and territories through the CHST to support their investments in early childhood development programs and services. In 2003-2004, this transfer will grow to $500 million. A wide range of activities is under way in the provinces and territories as a result of the federal funding for early childhood development. Broad provincial and territorial government priorities for investing in early childhood development are outlined on the map in this chapter.


CHST Funding for Early Childhood Development
The Government of Canada transfer to provinces and territories through the CHST in support of early childhood development, is broken down as follows:
	($Millions)
	2001-2002	2002-2003	2003-2004	2004-2005	2005-2006	Total

Newfoundland and Labrador	5.1	6.6	8.2	8.1	8.1	36.1
Prince Edward Island	1.3	1.7	2.2	2.2	2.2	9.6
Nova Scotia	9.0	11.9	14.8	14.7	14.6	65.1
New Brunswick	7.3	9.6	11.9	11.8	11.7	52.2
Quebec	71.6	95.0	118.4	118.0	117.7	520.7
Ontario	115.0	154.2	193.4	194.1	194.8	851.4
Manitoba	11.1	14.7	18.4	18.3	18.3	80.9
Saskatchewan	9.7	12.7	15.7	15.6	15.4	69.2
Alberta	29.6	39.7	49.8	50.0	50.2	219.4
British Columbia	39.4	52.5	65.6	65.5	65.4	288.4
Yukon	0.3	0.4	0.5	0.5	0.5	2.1
Northwest Territories	0.4	0.5	0.7	0.7	0.7	2.9
Nunavut	0.3	0.4	0.5	0.5	0.5	2.2
TOTAL	300.0	400.0	500.0	500.0	500.0	2,200.0
Totals may not add due to rounding. Figures are based on Statistics Canada population estimates for 2001-02 to 2003-04 and Finance Canada population projections for 2004-05 and 2005-06. As the CHST is allocated on a per capita basis, all figures are subject to revision through the regular CHST estimation process as new population figures become available. Payments for 2004-05 onwards will flow through the Canada Social Transfer (CST), which comes into effect on April 1st, 2004.

All provinces and territories are committed to report annually on their investments and their progress in enhancing early childhood development programs and services in the four main areas described in the ECD Agreement. It is beyond the scope of this report to describe in detail all of the many programs and supports being implemented by provincial and territorial governments across Canada. The reader is referred to the individual provincial and territorial governments to read their progress reports on early childhood development. The following four profiles provide examples of the kinds of investments that provincial and territorial governments are making.²

PEI Partnerships for Children

PEI Partnerships for Children was a new initiative in 2002-2003 to promote healthy outcomes for young children in Prince Edward Island. The initiative was also intended to strengthen community-based networks. In Prince Edward Island, a "network of networks" links individuals, organizations and coalitions who work to improve child outcomes. This network forms the PEI Children's Working Group and includes members from the community, academia and government. Through PEI Partnerships for Children, each network of the Children's Working Group was allocated $10,000 for initiatives that support the key action areas outlined in the Healthy Child Development Strategy.

The funding was allocated using a non-competitive community development approach. Networks were required to demonstrate how their project would address the strategy objectives and how their partners would work together to implement the initiative.

PEI Partnerships for Children supported a range of activities, including social marketing and public awareness, the development of a salary grid for early childhood educators, programs for children, and workshops and conferences for parents. Initiatives addressed prenatal education, social skills for children with exceptional needs, children's mental health, active living, literacy, use of car seats and booster seats, and information for parents to support their children during the transition from early childhood to the school system. A complete description of initiatives is available on the province's Healthy Child Development website (www.gov.pe.ca/hcd).

All networks collaborated on a public education campaign to communicate key messages from their various networks. Over a period of two weeks, a coordinated newspaper and radio campaign was implemented across Prince Edward Island. The networks' commitment to healthy child development and their spirit of collaboration was demonstrated throughout the course of this project.

In 2002-2003, Prince Edward Island received $1.7 million from the Government of Canada through the ECD Agreement.

New Brunswick Goes High Tech to Assist Parents with Young Children

OLTtec (On Line Training to Engage Communities) is a computer program designed to support the implementation of Communities Raising Children (CRC), one of the new initiatives introduced in New Brunswick's Early Childhood Development Agenda.

CRC encourages partnerships with government and business at the community level in order to better support parents of young children across the province. Early childhood social workers have begun working with community-based REP (research, education and planning) teams and are using the OLTtec interactive website to support community capacity-building efforts.

OLTtec's 11 modules provide opportunities to share resources and information more effectively, to learn from each other and to celebrate successes. The data collection capacity of the new pilot will also support research on effective community engagement practices.

In 2002-2003, New Brunswick received $9.6 million from the Government of Canada through the ECD Agreement.

Measuring Progress in Manitoba Using the Early Development Instrument

Led by the Ministers of the Healthy Child Committee of Cabinet, Healthy Child Manitoba (HCM) is the Manitoba government's long-term, cross-departmental strategy to support healthy child and adolescent development.

The HCM Provincial Evaluation Strategy is focused on measuring progress in child-centred public policy and assisting the Government of Manitoba in developing the most effective cross-sectoral mechanisms for achieving the best possible outcomes for Manitoba's children, families and communities.

One of the key components of this strategy is the Early Development Instrument (EDI), a population-based community-level monitoring tool developed by the Offord Centre for Child Studies. The EDI is designed to measure the relative success of communities in facilitating healthy early childhood development and to predict children's "readiness to learn" when entering Grade 1. The EDI examines five domains-physical health and well-being, social competence, emotional maturity, language and cognitive development, and communication skills and general knowledge.

Funding provided by HCM has facilitated the phased-in, voluntary implementation of the EDI in school divisions throughout Manitoba. In 2002-2003, 24 school divisions (more than 8,000 students) participated in the EDI, including those divisions involved in Human Resources Development Canada's Understanding the Early Years initiative. All 38 amalgamated school divisions, representing more than 12,300 Manitoba children, are expected to implement the EDI by 2005.

The knowledge gained from ongoing evaluation and measurement is being integrated with programs in Manitoba's Early Childhood Development Continuum (see puzzle graphic) and shared with community partners. By creating partnerships and using research-based knowledge and evidence to inform policy, Manitoba is moving closer to realizing its Healthy Child vision-the best possible outcomes for Manitoba's children.

In 2002-2003, Manitoba directed funds in excess of $107 million to early childhood development investments, of which $42 million represented the incremental increase since April 2000. Of this total, $14.7 million was received from the Government of Canada through the ECD Agreement in 2002-2003.

The Early Years Plan in Ontario

In Ontario, ensuring that the youngest children get the best start in life is a priority. The years before age six are pivotal in building the foundation of lifelong learning and health for children. Recognizing that parents play a lead role in their children's development, Ontario introduced its Early Years Plan in May 2001 to help the province's 850,000 children under six get the best start in life.

Ontario's Early Years Plan builds on existing partnerships, programs and services, providing province-wide initiatives that are flexible and respond to the broad needs of all Ontario's children and families. The Early Years Plan includes a blend of programs, encouraging the healthy development of all children, as well as targeted programs for children with specific difficulties, such as autism or mental health issues.

Early child development initiatives focus on promoting healthy pregnancy, birth and infancy; improving parenting and family supports; strengthening early childhood development, learning and care; and strengthening community supports.

With the Government of Canada's early childhood development funding of $154.2 million in 2002-2003, the Ontario government has supported programs that ensure Ontario's children and their families will have the support and services they need for children to have a healthy start in life. Key programs include Ontario Early Years Centres, the Ontario Early Years Challenge Fund, Early Literacy initiative, Pregnant Women with Addictions projects, Prenatal HIV Testing, breastfeeding promotion, parenting education and awareness, injury prevention, and Prenatal and Postnatal Nurse Practitioner services.

Scope of the Report

This report focuses on the activities of the Government of Canada that have direct impact on children under six and their families. It covers the period April 1, 2002 to March 31, 2003. It includes activities for Canadian children, and immigrant and refugee children living in Canada and their families. It excludes investments in international programs and aid to help young children and their families in other countries.

This report covers direct investments, including salary and operating costs, as well as grants and contributions. Capital investments such as technology and infrastructure are not included. It should be noted that, in some cases, expenditures identified for children under six have been estimated from a larger spending total when an activity also serves older children. The baseline report, Federal/Provincial/Territorial Early Childhood Development Agreement: Report on Government of Canada Activities and Expenditures 2000-2001, provided detailed descriptions of the Government of Canada's activities directly related to children under six-including the mandate, goals and objectives of the activities.

Federal/Provincial/Territorial Early Childhood Development Agreement: Early Childhood Development Activities and Expenditures: Government of Canada Report 2001-2002 built on that information. This year's report once again builds on the previously published information, and highlights new activities which began in 2002-2003, as well as changes to previously reported activities that occurred in 2002-2003. Since the quantitative information related to those activities — including the number of programs, projects or activity sites, the number of young children and families reached, and the total expenditures — may change each year, they will be updated annually.

Format of the Report

Data in this report are organized according to the four areas for action of the ECD Agreement:

to promote healthy pregnancy, birth and infancy;
to improve parenting and family supports;
to strengthen early childhood development, learning and care; and
to strengthen community supports.

Separate chapters have been included on research and information, and services and programs provided to First Nations and other Aboriginal children and their families. The final chapter is the baseline report for the Multilateral Framework on Early Learning and Child Care

Where an activity can be specifically related to one of the four areas (e.g. information directly related to parenting supports), it is covered in that chapter. However, it is recognized that some activities have relevance to two or more of the four areas for action. These activities will be reported in one chapter of the report only.

Chapters 2 through 7 of the report begin with a table entitled "Activities at a Glance." These tables provide a brief description of all activities undertaken by the Government of Canada relating to the chapter topic. The table is followed by text — entitled "Highlights" — which describes changes and developments in each activity. The information is organized according to government department and reported based on the indicators outlined in the shared framework where applicable and possible — these being, availability, accessibility, affordability and quality. Activities that are new are labelled New.

The chapters conclude with tables quantifying the activities and expenditures related to each activity described in the chapter. For programs providing direct support to children, this includes the number of sites, the number of children under six and families reached by the activity, and the expenditures related to the activity. All of this information is provided for 2000-2001, 2001-2002 and 2002-2003, where available. For other supporting programs, the intended audience and intermediaries are described for 2002-2003 only.

Given that one of the objectives of reporting is to continually improve, a new information collection process was put into place this year allowing for the collection of more information. As a result, this is the first year these data on the supporting programs are available. Expenditure data for other supporting programs are reported for all three years.

Chapter 8 describes the activities related to early learning and child care as defined in the Multilateral Framework on Early Learning and Child Care Reporting. This chapter provides the baseline report on Government of Canada early learning and child care programs and services in 2002-2003.

An effort has been made to provide thorough and complete information for these activities. However, in some cases, information is either not available or not applicable.

There are six Annexes to the report: a summary of activities and expenditures by federal department; the full text of the Shared Framework for Reporting on Progress in Improving and Expanding ECD Programs and Services; the full text of the Federal/Provincial/Territorial Early Childhood Agreement; the full text of the Multilateral Framework on Early Learning and Child Care, March 2003; contact information for the federal departments responsible for the activities in the report; and a listing of websites related to the activities.