A Canadian Child Care Federation Committee
The Alberta Early Learning and Care Leaders’ Caucus
Alberta Early Learning and Care Leaders’ Caucus
The Alberta Leaders Caucus of Early Learning and Care (ALC) is a project funded by and supported through the Canadian Child Care Federation to help inform public policy discussions in the field of early learning and care. The ALC comprises a knowledgeable group of leaders that convene with an intent to think through strategies, inform and influence how Early Learning and Care is funded, delivered and supported in Alberta.
The ALC recognizes that a well-educated and well-supported early learning and child care workforce is the foundation for high-quality child care that fosters children’s learning experiences and meets families’ needs.
Co-chairs
Amanda Rosset and Lea Blust
Members
Bernice Taylor
Christine Villeneuve
Janet Huffman
Lisa Daniel
Nancy King
Rebecca Leong
Shefali Geoffroy Chateau
Strategies to Improve the Total Compensation and Working Conditions of Certified Early Childhood Educators in Alberta
This report provides a series of strategies to support improvements that are critical to address the challenges the child care workforce faces and to build its capacity to meet the goals set out in the Canada-Alberta Canada-wide Early Learning and Child Care Agreement. This report, presents findings from focus group discussions with early childhood educators, held in fall 2023. It considers the current working conditions, compensation and benefits available to early childhood educators and identifies critical areas for improvement to better support their work with young children.
Getting It Right - 2022 Recommendations for improving Alberta’s child care licensing legislation
Across Canada and around the globe, governments are moving away from the historically rooted model of child care as custodial care toward a model that acknowledges the importance of children’s early years. This new model places the child at the heart of an integrated system that includes research, policy, quality delivery, sustainable funding, and many other factors. In May 2024, only 43% of early childhood educators in Alberta had a two-year diploma, and for a significant portion of this group, the diploma did not relate to early learning and child care. Forty per cent of early childhood educators had only a 54-hour child care orientation course.
This is not good enough, and it’s not right. This paper outlines recommendations for improving Alberta’s child care licensing legislation to address these core issues.
ECE Focus Group Reports - The Workforce Investments Required for Early Learning and Child Care System Building in Alberta - 2022
The Canada-Alberta Canada-Wide Early Learning and Child Care Agreement, signed in November 2021, allocates $3.8 billion in new federal monies to support system building. The agreement highlights the importance of ‘valuing the early childhood workforce and providing them with training and development opportunities’.
To gather input into how the new workforce investments included in the agreement might build workforce capacity, the Ministry of Children’s Services held two virtual consultations with invited early learning and care stakeholders in April 2022. The first focussed on workforce strategies and the second on the certification of early childhood educators. The Ministry followed up these virtual consultations with two online surveys; the first for early childhood educators, released in May and the second for family child care providers, released in June. This report covers the results and conclusions drawn from these consultations.
Roadmap to a Quality Early Learning and Child Care System in Alberta - 2021
The ‘Roadmap to a Quality Early Learning and Child Care System in Alberta’ is a collaborative effort of the Canadian Child Care Federation and its Alberta Leaders’ Caucus, Child Care Now and its Alberta Chapter, the YMCA of Northern Alberta and the Muttart Foundation. Its focus is on regulated early learning and child care for children 0 to 6 years of age, although the roadmap partners recognize the importance of school age care, regulated and supported through the Ministry of Children’s Services, and Early Childhood Services, funded through the Ministry of Education.
The roadmap reflects the findings from virtual engagements with early learning and child care stakeholders, held in summer 2021, as well as the many years of Canadian and international research and policy development in respect to system building.
The ALC produced a series of videos alongside the 2022 focus group. They took real answers provided by ECEs, and produced videos to help convey the contents visually.
Disclaimer: These videos are excerpts from the focus group participants, but the people in the video are NOT educators; educators’ identities will always remain anonymous. Excerpts are almost always exactly what was said – direct quotes from participants – but there may be some instances when a volunteer reciting the excerpt on the video changed a word or two; regardless, the essence of the messaging remains the same.
To view past ALC webinars, please follow this link
Our webinars cover topics like workforce investment, wage grid recommendations and ECE wages in Alberta, understanding affordability in child care, and many others.
