Health Nexus Today / Nexus Santé aujourd’hui

THE EARLY YEARS STUDY

In 1998, the Mike Harris government asked Dr. Fraser Mustard, of the Founders Network, to provide advice on how the province could best support and most positively impact young children (and their families). In 1999, the Early Years Study: Reversing the real brain drain was released by the Children’s Secretariat (under Margaret Marland, then-Minister Responsible for Children). Co-authored by Fraser Mustard and Margaret McCain, the Early Years Study made many recommendations on how to create an early child development and parenting system that would be built on evidence-based brain development research, revolve around play-based, problem-solving curricula for children, support parents in their parenting role, and be community-based and driven and keep and use data on program evaluation and child outcomes.

In 2000, the Premier appointed a ten-member task group of volunteers representing many sectors including child care, health, social services, business, legal and the Aboriginal community, to develop an implementation plan based on the Early Years Study. The task group’s work was cut short by John Baird, who as a result of a cabinet shuffle, took over the children’s portfolio from Marland, and relieved the task group of its duties before it could submit its final report.

ONTARIO EARLY YEARS CENTRES

In 2001, the Ontario government launched the Ontario Early Years Centres (OEYCs). The OEYCs were criticized for several reasons: they were not the program envisioned by the Early Years Study; they had no non-parental ‘child care’ component to them; and for many, the Early Years Study failed to adequately acknowledge (and recommend) that the current system of family resource programs could be the foundation of the proposed early child development and parenting system. Family resource programs really were community-responsive models of support for children and for families. As a result, many of the province’s family resource programs (who had been in existence in some cases since the 1970s) were amalgamated into OEYCs or were lost and 103 OEYCs sprang up over a couple of years.

In 2003, Mustard released a follow-up study, reporting on the government’s lack of progress regarding the Early Years Study.

GOVERNMENT’S BEST START PLAN

The current Ontario government, in their 2005 Throne Speech, announced a similar vision to the original Mustard/McCain one: the McGuinty government proposed a Best Start Plan (not to be confused with the OPC Best Start Resource Centre) that was child care focused and was to operate out of community hubs, with any new child care centres opening in schools. Three demonstration sites for the Ontario Best Start Plan have been established but since the Plan was contingent on federal contributions, which have been cut off, the future of Ontario’s Best Start Plan is uncertain. Last week’s provincial budget had no mention of the “Best Start Plan”, although they did announce some dollars to child care.

EARLY YEARS STUDY II

Today, at the Peel Success by Six conference, Fraser Mustard will release his latest follow-up, “The Early Years Study II: Putting Science into Action”. The newest release will echo recommendations for a comprehensive early child development and parenting system that promotes and provides early learning, child care and family support.

Also today, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, released a report that finds Canada ranks last in a ranking of OECD countries that invest in early child development.
www.oecd.org/edu/earlychildhood

RESOURCES

The Early Years Study: Reversing the Real Brain Drain (1999)
www.children.gov.on.ca/CS/en/programs/BestStart/Publications/EarlyYearsStudy.htm
www.founders.net

The Best Start Plan, Ontario government
(2003)
www.children.gov.on.ca/NR/CS/BestStart/ActionPlan.pdf

The Early Years Study: Three Years Later
(2002)
www.founders.net/

The Early Years Study II: Putting Science into Action
(2007)
powerpoint from the Success by Six 2006 conference:
www.successby6ottawa.ca/docs/CECD_Success_by_6_Ottawa_2.ppt
The full report is not yet available online but check over the next few days at: www.earlychilddevelopment.ca

Family Resource Programs
www.frp.ca

This entry was posted on Monday, March 26th, 2007 at 11:48 am and is filed under Child health / Santé des enfants. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.