Following extensive consultation and a thorough review of research conducted in Alberta and elsewhere on quality in early learning and child care, the Edmonton Council for Early Learning and Care released Quality in Early Learning and Child Care: Recommendations for Action.

 On September 26, 2024, the Community-University Partnership for the Study of Children, Youth, and Families and the ECELC hosted a knowledge-to-action workshop on early learning and child care. The workshop aimed to share results from the Alberta Parent Survey on Early Learning and Child Care and identify opportunities to improve the quality, cultural relevance, affordability, accessibility, inclusivity, and flexibility of early learning and child care. The following report reflects the key recommendations developed by participating stakeholders.

Powering Growth: Economic Benefits from Canada’s $10-per-day Early Learning and Child Care Program report by Dr. Jim Stanford, Economist and Director, Centre for Future Work shows new $10aDay Child Care Plan is having a significant impact on Canada’s Economy. Canada’s new $10-per-day national early learning and child care (ELCC) program is only two years old, but the program is already making a measurable difference to Canada’s economy.

ECELC is excited  to share the Community-University Partnership for the Study of Children, Youth, and Families’s  2023-2024 Annual Report, where their staff, researchers, and students reflect on their experiences navigating recent “turning points.” More than a reflection on the past year, this report is their last snapshot of CUP before they adopt a new strategic plan for 2025-2028. 

We hope this report gives you a sense of what CUP’s work has looked like in recent years, what their strengths and priorities are, and their biggest questions and challenges moving forward.

As CUP’s director Karen Edwards writes in the report, CUP is currently witnessing a rise in demand for research and evaluation support across the social-serving, health, and education sectors. At the same time, they see a growing opportunity to showcase their model and demonstrate leadership in community engagement at the University of Alberta and across the Edmonton region.

If anything in this report resonates with you or inspires you to learn more, please reach out to CUP.  Share your story, connect to their network of researchers and community leaders, and explore how you can become part of their journey like the ECELC has been for many years. 

This report contains a snapshot of the Edmonton Council for Early Learning and Care’s work and associated impacts between September 2023 and August 2024. It provides context to understand the significance of the ECELC’s advocacy and policy initiatives and demonstrates how the Council continues to work towards building an effective system of early learning and child care in Edmonton that is high quality, affordable, inclusive, flexible and culturally responsive while being publicly planned, regulated and funded, just like other core public services.

Federal and provincial governments have embarked on a major undertaking to build systems of early learning and child care across Canada that meet high standards for quality, affordability, accessibility, inclusion, and flexibility. The success of this plan—the Canada-Wide Early Learning and Care (CWELCC) initiative—will depend partly on whether changes to early learning and care meet the needs and expectations of parents. To learn about parents’ views, the Alberta Parent Survey on Early Learning and Child Care was conducted in 2022 with over 1400 parents in Alberta with young children. The present report, the fifth in a series based on this survey, is focused on flexibility. Parents’ Views About the Flexibility of Early Learning and Child Care in Alberta includes detailed findings and recommendations for optimizing the way in which the CWELCC is implemented in Alberta.

Federal and provincial governments have embarked on a major undertaking to build systems of early learning and child care across Canada that meet high standards for quality, affordability, accessibility, inclusion, and flexibility. The success of this plan—the Canada-Wide Early Learning and Care (CWELCC) initiative—will depend partly on whether changes to early learning and care meet the needs and expectations of parents. To learn about parents’ views, the Alberta Parent Survey on Early Learning and Child Care was conducted in 2022 with over 1400 parents in Alberta with young children. The present report, the third in a series based on this survey, is focused on accessibility. Parents’ Views About Cultural Relevance in Early Learning and Child Care in Alberta includes detailed findings and recommendations for optimizing the way in which the CWELCC is implemented in Alberta.

Federal and provincial governments have embarked on a major undertaking to build systems of early learning and child care across Canada that meet high standards for quality, affordability, accessibility, inclusion, and flexibility. The success of this plan—the Canada-Wide Early Learning and Care (CWELCC) initiative—will depend partly on whether changes to early learning and care meet the needs and expectations of parents. To learn about parents’ views, the Alberta Parent Survey on Early Learning and Child Care was conducted in 2022 with over 1400 parents in Alberta with young children. The present report, the third in a series based on this survey, is focused on accessibility. Parents’ Views About the Accessibility of Early Learning and Child Care in Alberta includes detailed findings and recommendations for optimizing the way in which the CWELCC is implemented in Alberta.

Federal and provincial governments have embarked on a major undertaking to build systems of early learning and child care across Canada that meet high standards for quality, affordability, accessibility, inclusion, and flexibility. The success of this plan—the Canada-Wide Early Learning and Care (CWELCC) initiative—will depend partly on whether changes to early learning and care meet the needs and expectations of parents. To learn about parents’ views, the Alberta Parent Survey on Early Learning and Child Care was conducted in 2022 with over 1400 parents in Alberta with young children. The present report, the second in a series based on this survey, is focused on quality. Parents’ Views About the Quality of Early Learning and Child Care in Alberta includes detailed findings and recommendations for optimizing the way in which the CWELCC is implemented in Alberta.

Federal and provincial governments have embarked on a major undertaking to build systems of early learning and child care across Canada that meet high standards for quality, affordability, accessibility, inclusion, and flexibility. The success of this plan—the Canada-Wide Early Learning and Care (CWELCC) initiative—will depend partly on whether changes to early learning and care meet the needs and expectations of parents. To learn about parents’ views, the Alberta Parent Survey on Early Learning and Child Care was conducted in 2022 with over 1400 parents in Alberta with young children. The present report, one in a series based on this survey, is focused on affordability. Parents’ Views About the Affordability of Early Learning and Child Care in Alberta includes detailed findings and recommendations for optimizing the way in which the CWELCC is implemented in Alberta.

This report contains a snapshot of the Edmonton Council for Early Learning and Care’s work and associated impacts between September 2022 and August 2023. It provides context to understand the significance of the ECELC’s advocacy and policy initiatives and demonstrates how they contributed to EPE’s focus area of rigorous research and analysis, high-trust relationships, and policy thought leadership. This report also provides the City of Edmonton a transparent look at the Council's work over the past year and describes its future plans.

The Cost Control Framework and For-Profit Expansion Plan, released in January 2023, is intended to be an important step in implementing Alberta’s version of a Canada-wide system of early learning and child care. This two-page summary of Questions About the Cost-Control Framework and For-Profit Expansion Plan provides a brief overview of (a) the cost-control framework and expansion plan and (b) six critical questions that must be addressed as Alberta attempts to build an effective system of early learning and child care.

In fall 2022, the Muttart Foundation in partnership with the Association of Early Childhood Educators of Alberta and the Alberta Leaders Caucus sponsored a series of focus group discussions with certified early childhood educators across Alberta.

A post-graduate research team, supported by the Community-University Partnership (CUP), the Evaluation Capacity Network (ECN), and the Edmonton Council of Early Learning and Care (ECELC) in partnership with the Association of Early Childhood Educators of Alberta (AECEA), has been conducting community-engaged, qualitative research on a compensation framework for early childhood educators of Alberta.

The article is based on research the authors conducted in the spring of 2020 on behalf of the Edmonton Council for Early Learning and Care (ECELC) and MacEwan University. The collaborative research project focused on the experiences of Indigenous families and their children in childcare and brought to attention a range of quality indicators and educator dispositions valued by Indigenous families. As part of the research project, the researchers conducted a literature review – an analysis of research on childcare in Canada, the United States, Australia and New Zealand – to frame the study and offer preliminary findings before conducting focus groups with local Indigenous families.

In January 2021, we launched the Journeys Project. The Journeys Project is a collaboration between the Multicultural Health Brokers Cooperative, the Community-University Partnership and the Edmonton Council for Early Learning and Care. The aim of the project was to gather rich firsthand accounts of the experiences of ethnocultural parents with young children (birth to 5 years old) in early learning and childcare (ELCC) in Edmonton. The Journeys Project drew on the cultural brokering practice and intercultural expertise of the MCHB. We engaged 30 parents from 6 ethnocultural communities: Kurdish-speaking, Eritrean and Ethiopian, Bhutanese Filipino, Spanish-speaking, and Chinese-speaking.

The ECELC is introducing a series of infographics explaining common terms used in the early learning and care community. The sixth one is focused on inclusive child care for Indigenous families.

The ECELC is introducing a series of infographics explaining common terms used in the early learning and care community. The fifth one is focused on inclusive child care for newcomer families.

This 1-page document summarizes the main findings and suggestions from the June 2022 brief “Headed Up, But Still Behind: Child Care Coverage Rates in Alberta’s Top Ten Largest Cities, 2016-2021.”