What is happening now?

Engagement with families, child care providers, early years and child care operators and partners

Community engagement is being held with families, child care providers, licensed early years and child care operators, and partners for the next few months (April to August). This is being done by surveys, in-person, and online meetings. Feedback will help to us draft priorities and actions for the System Plan.

Engagement with Special Needs Resourcing, EarlyON Programs

Interviews and focus groups are planned to take place over the summer with Special Needs Resourcing partners, EarlyON lead agency and the Indigenous led EarlyON Family Centre. This will help to understand the challenges facing our partner agencies.

Engagement with school boards

Engagement with the local school boards will take place over the summer. This will help to understand strengths, challenges, barriers, and issues of equity primarily related to before and after school programs, as well as child care/EarlyON programs within schools.

Internal regional staff consultations

In the coming months, engagement sessions are planned for Children’s Services staff. These are staff who work directly with child care subsidy, quality initiatives, business administration, and management. They will be able to provide insight into barriers in the system.

What we will be doing over the next 12-18 months

• Completing an environmental scan and gathering relevant early years and child care data for analysis. Develop engagement plan.
• Conducting widespread community engagement through surveys, interviews, focus groups with the early years and child care community, families, and community partners.
• Analyzing and synthesizing community feedback; generating themes and emerging priorities to inform system plan development.
• Reviewing and validating strategic priorities and actions with the Early Years and Child Care sector and other community stakeholders.