NACY e-Digest - The voice for child & youth issues in Canada

Paper by CRRU Executive Director, Martha Friendly, for the City of Toronto provides background research on child care funidng models, reviews current ECEC funding arrangements and makes recommendations to both the provincial and municipal governments. Read more.

CWLC's Call for Papers: Canada's Children

The Child Welfare League of Canada (CWLC) is currently preparing the Fall edition of Canada's Children. This entire edition will be devoted to the Every Child Matters project and will focus on issues related to foster care in Canada. Should you be interested in submitting an article or editorial, please send in your submissions before August 10, 2011. Submissions are welcomed in French or English. Guidelines for Canada's Children are available by clicking here. Please contact Anna Ekins, Knowledge Development Coordinator at (tel) 613-235-4412 ext 26 or [email protected] to submit your article.

BC's Community Plan for a Public System of Integrated Early Care and Learning & Virtual Tool Kit for Communities

In April, the Coalition of Child Care Advocates of BC and the Early Childhood Educators of BC released their Community Plan for a Public System of Integrated Early Care and Learning.

A new Virtual Tool Kit for Communities
The kit includes ideas and resources to help build support for the Plan in your community. Fore more information: [email protected].

Action to End Poverty in Alberta

The Poverty Reduction Strategy Initiative launched the social media part of their campaign for a provincial poverty reduction strategy. This includes three new communication tools that will contribut to the dialogue and discussion in the issue about the elements needed in the future strategy to reduce poverty in Alberta. Read more.

CHNET-Works! invites you to FREE Fireside chats

CHNET-Works! is a network of networks, using innovative information technology to support discussions and actions on pressing population health issues. The intent is to make leading edge research and application information accessible, to enable discussions and to support individual and collective action on population health issues. Working in partnership with provincial, territorial and national organizations, two streams are evident: continuing education and mobilizing the network to action. For informaiton on upcoming Fireside Chats, click here.

Children with Special Educational Needs in Early Childhood

Concept paper by Ryerson University's Kathryn Underwood and Rachel Langford for the Atkinson Centre Early Years Task Force.

Early Learning in Ontario: From Policy to Implementation

Presentations and posters from the Atkinson/GBC Summer Institute 2011 held on June 1st. Video coming soon.

Resources for Canadian Parents

This feature gathers websites, government contacts and community groups organized by province/territory to help families in finding child care, acessing subsidies, dealing with concerns, and getitng involved in the child care community.

Tax, Time and Territory: The Development of Early Childhood Education and Child Care in Canada and Great Britian

University of Toronto PhD dissertation by Luc Turgeon examines the evolution of Britain's and Canada's ECEC sectors, drawing on both extensive archival research and on interviews with policy-makers and ECEC activists. Read more.

Materials from the 2011 Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences

Annual conference organized by the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences featured a number of presentations of new research relevant to the early childhood education and care community. Read more.

New Website Aims to Protect Canadian Children

MissingKids.ca is a new website launched by the Canadian Centre for Child Protection that provides vital information and assistance to parents of missing children. It is also a resource for law enforcement agencies across Canada that work tirelessly to reunite missing children with their families.

Every year, more than 50,000 children are reported missing in Canada. The MissingKids.ca website will act as a portal where communities and law enforcement can immediately access and/or share information on missing or abducted children, including Amber Alerts.

MissingKids.ca has four primary functions: To assist in the location of missing children; To provide educational materials to help prevent children from going missing; To be an information resource centre on missing children; and To coordinate efforts and assist stakeholders in the delivery of missing children services.

Join the Consultation on the Child Rights Principles for Business Initiative

UNICEF, the UN Global Compact, and Save the Children are leading a process to develop global principles on the children's rights and business. These principles are intended to guide and support the private sector in becoming a more positive force for children, whether in the workplace, marketplace or community. We hope they will become a reference for all those concerned with children's rights and business, regardless of sector.

The group is developing the principles through consultation with a wide range of partners and contributors. They invite you to take pare in shaping these important principles through the online portal at the Business and Human Rights Resource Center website. You will find explanatory information, the draft principles an a simple process to contribute your views on the principles and how they can best be implemented. Contributions can be made in any of hte six UN languages. The online consultation will be open until 30 June 2011. You can contact Madison Goodacre ([email protected]) with any queries that you may have about the consultation or the initiative.

Top Legal Mind to Tackly Cyberbullying in NS

Wayne MacKay, a law professor at Dalhousie University in Halifax and a noted human rights advocate, was recently chosen to lead a provincial cyberbullying task force by the Government of Nova Scotia. He was recently interviewed by The Halifax Chronicle Herald about the task force and what he hopes it can accomplish. In the article, MacKay admits the five-member task force faces a huge challenge in tackling what he considers to be an ever-growing problem. "It's somewhat of a different order of having your reputation damaged worldwide by having comments made or things done on the Internet," he said. The full article can be viewed by clicking here.

Funding Available for Healthy Transitions for Vulnerable Youth

The Community Action Initiative is designed to promote and support community-based, collaborative and culturally safe approaches to mental health and substance use. It was established through a $10M grant from the Province of British Columbia.

The Initiative provides funding opportunities for community groups and organizations to support cross-sectoral activities and projects that improve the mental health of children, youth and adults in British Columbia and reduce harms related to substance use. Their mission is to strengthen the capacity of communities and their members to participate in an expanded response continuum to mental health and substance use and to contribute to effective public policy.

This year initiatives related to "Healthy Transitions for Vulnerable Youth" are invited to apply for funding. Details are available at www.communityactioninitiative.ca.

UNICEF Canada Petition for National Children's Commissioner

According to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Canada ranks second in the world on a quality of life index. However, when examining the state and well-being of our children, Canada falls to the middle of the pack.

In early June, David Morley, president and CEO, UNICEF Canada, wrote a letter to the editor of the Globe and Mail in response to their original reporting on Canada's 2nd place ranking:

"Canada's second-place finish behind Australia in an OECD ranking of quality of life indicators looks laudatory, but in the race for that silver medal, our children are running behind their peers in other industrialized countries. When the health and development statistics of children are looked at in isolation from those of the general population, Canada suddenly drops to the middle of the pack.

Canada's children are a quarter of our population, but they're virtually invisible in our public policy debates. It's time for a national children's commissioner to assess the impact of federal laws on children, and for more transparent budgeting for children's programs and services at all levels."

UNICEF Canada has launched a petition for a National Children's Commissioner and are asking that you take the time to sign and forward it on. They will also soon launch a new letter-writing campaign in the near future. Please visit www.unicef.ca for more information or visit them on Facebook at www.facebook.com/UNICEF-Canada.

Occupational Standards Checklists

New tool from the Child Care Human Resources Sector Council "uses a checklist format that allows ECEs and administrators to evaluate themselves on their tasks and reflect on their skills, knowledge and abilities". More information, here.

Briefing Note on CHRT Tribunal

CWLC created a briefing note on the decision of the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal (CHRT) regarding the complaint of the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society and Assembly of First Nations (AFN). To access the document, click here.

Permanency for Children in Ontario (Bill 179)

Ontarians have united in a call to action for permanency for children in Ontario. Bill 179 was the last bill to be signed by the Ontario legislation before it sat on June 2 2011. The Bill represents a huge step forward in developing a Provincial Permanency Agenda for Ontario that focuses totally on the need of children for permanency and the recognition that permanency is a family.

The force behind the legislation was the 2009 Expert Panel on Infertility and Adoption lead by current governor general David Johnson. In November 2010, frustrated by inaction on the recommendations of the panel, families and youth spoke directly to government officials. Their voices were heard.

More notably, this bill was supported unanimously by all three parties and represents a comprehensive process of needs assessment that brought in the voice of families, adoptees, birth families and child welfare professionals. This will support continued collaboration, planning and action regardless of which political party is leading the province in Ontario. For more information, please visit the Adoption Council of Ontario's website.