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The Atkinson Centre promotes research on child development, and the development of early learning policy and practice that serve young children and their families.

Our hearts are heavy with news of the horrifying attack on a Muslim family in London, Ontario. Four lives and three generations of a family taken and one young boy now orphaned.

Excerpt: "The proposed ELCC act will increase transparency and accountability by requiring the Province to produce annual reports on its progress towards building an inclusive, universal child care system. The report will also include how the Province is collaborating with Indigenous peoples to support Indigenous-led child care. The ELCC act will also give the minister responsible the authority to create new regulations, including the ability to set limits on child care fees for parents. This will help ensure child care is more affordable for families."

The Atkinson Centre promotes research on child development, and the development of early learning policy and practice that serve young children and their families.

Posted on The Conversation.

Excerpt: "As Canada emerges from the COVID-19 pandemic, early education is key to the recovery of not just children and families, but of our social economy. Children have endured learning delays and many have seen worsening mental health. The pandemic has also rocked an early childhood sector that was already unstable and uneven. We must do better.

The newly released Early Childhood Education Report 2020 monitors quality and changes in early child education across Canada, and suggests critical issues to consider. The report is produced by the Atkinson Centre, a research centre based at the ²ÝÝ®ÎÛÊÓƵµ¼º½ that uses best available evidence on early child development to inform public policy."

Our hearts are heavy as we mourn the 215 children found at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School.

This is the 4th edition of the Early Childhood Education Report (ECER). Established in 2011, the report is released every three years to evaluate provincial/territorial early years services against a 15-point scale. Results are populated from detailed profiles of each province and territory. The ECER is organized around 5-categories with 21 benchmarks forming a common set of minimum criteria contributing to the delivery of quality programming. This report captures changes to early years services from March 2017 to March 2020, as such it is able to assess the impact of the Early Learning and Child Care Bilateral Agreements and serves as a baseline for the pre-pandemic status of ECE in Canada.

Presented by Kerry McCuaig, Senior Policy Fellow, Atkinson Centre for Society and Child Development, at 17th Annual Summer Institute on Early Childhood Development - The Early Years: From Disruption to Recovery and Beyond, June 2, 2021

Excerpt: "More families than ever are benefiting from better access to quality, affordable child care, thanks to the fastest creation of child care spaces in B.C.’s history. The Province has exceeded its original three-year goal and has funded nearly 26,000 new licensed child care spaces since the 10-year Childcare BC plan was launched in 2018. Nearly 70% of these spaces are expected to be open for families within the next year."

PhD in Developmental Psychology and Education (DPE) student, Juensung Kim.
Expected year of graduation: 2022.

Excerpt: "The Active Families Benefit will provide families with an annual income of less than $60,000 up to $150 per year, per child or $200 per year, per child for children who are eligible for the federal Child Disability Tax Credit. This benefit helps with the costs associated with enrolling children in sport and recreation activities. This investment is part of the 2021-22 Budget and will be retroactive to January 1, 2021. Parents who enroll their children in sport, culture and recreation activities in the 2021 calendar year are therefore reminded to keep their receipts so they may claim the benefit with their 2021 tax filings."

Excerpt: "Both projects have been supported by more than $1.6 million in capital grants through the 2020-21 Canada-Manitoba Early Learning and Child Care Agreement, along with more than $405,000 in start-up and annual operating grant funding. The Canada-Manitoba Early Learning and Child Care Agreement delivers more than $15 million annually for early learning and child-care investments in Manitoba. In total with the investments in 2020-21, the federal government will have provided Manitoba with a total of approximately $62.4 million over four years for early learning and child care. The governments of Canada and Manitoba are working to extend the current bilateral agreement to continue to support the early learning and child-care sector."