Global strategies: Improving labour conditions for the working poor

What do we know about labour conditions among the working poor worldwide, how do those conditions affect broader public health and what can Canada and other governments do to improve conditions for the world's most disadvantaged workers?

On Thursday May 1st and Friday May 2nd, 2008, the McGill Institute for Health and Social Policy (IHSP) will host Global Strategies: Improving the Labour Conditions of the Working Poor. This conference will gather leading academics and policy makers, including senior representatives of the government of Canada, labour and non-governmental organizations and international experts, to not only consider these issues but to propose effective policy solutions.

Keynote speakers:
Hon. Ken Dryden, Hon. Hugh Segal, Stephen Pursey, John Frank, Kathy Newman, and Pat Horn.

This is a free space limited conference.

Contact name: 
Martine Chaussard
Contact phone: 
514-398-5631
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The consequences of corporatization and marketization of child care. It's not as easy as ABC

Location:
Canadiana Building, School of Public Policy and Governance, University of Toronto
14 Queen's park Crescent West
Toronto
CA

The Atkinson Centre for Society and Child Development and the School of Public Policy and Governance (UT) present Australian researcher Deborah Brennan.

Deborah Brennan is one of Australia's leading researchers in comparative welfare, children's services and family policy. She is the author of 'The Politics of Australian Child Care: From Philanthropy to Feminism' and was inaugural Convenor of the National Association of Community Based Child Care. She is Professor of Social Policy at the University of New South Wales

Chair:

Carl Corter, Atkinson Charitable Foundation Chair in Early Child Development and Education

Panelists:

Martha Friendly, Executive Director: Child Care Research and Resource Unit

Linda White, Associate Professor: Political Science University of Toronto and Affiliate, School of Public Policy and Governance, University of Toronto

Gord Cleveland: Senior Lecturer in Economics for Management Studies, Department of Management, University of Toronto at Scarborough

Registration is not required for this event.

Contact name: 
Zeenat Janmohamed
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ECEC: Where does Canada stand and what does the future hold?

Location:
Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto
252 Bloor Street West, Room 12-199
Toronto
CA

The Social Economy Centre (OISE/UT) presents the Lunchbox Speakers' Series featuring Martha Friendly and Linda White.

Martha Friendly will discuss the state of early childhood education and childcare in Canada within the context of our poor results in the OECD's twenty-nation comparative study.

Linda White will consider how the present and future of early childhood education and childcare is linked to such factors as Canada's welfare state regime and approach to federalism.

This event will also be webcast live on the internet. Please see the Social Economy Centre's website for detailed instructions.

Contact name: 
Lisa White
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3rd On New Shores conference: International forum on issues of immigrant and refugee children, youth, and families

Location:
University of Guelph Guelph
CA

This conference will be held at the University of Guelph, ON, on November 6 - 7, 2008, organized by Dr. Susan Chuang. The goals of this conference are to bring together leading scholars from various disciplines (psychology, sociology, education, social work, nursing etc.), professionals (from settlement agencies, family programs), and governmental agencies to: 1) present work on various issues (e.g., socio-emotional development, parent-child relationships, language brokering, literacy, educational issues) and effective programs (for children, youth, parents); 2) have in-depth discussions about current issues and challenges faced by families, organizations, and research); and 3) create opportunities to foster future collaborations.

Contact name: 
Susan Chuang
Contact email: 
Contact phone: 
(519) 824-4120 ext. 58389
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The future of the ECE field in Ontario: A focus on the changing landscape

Location:
Niagara College Canada, Niagara on the Lake Campus
135 Taylor Road
Niagara on the Lake
CA

58th annual conference presented by the Association of Early Childhood Educators Ontario in collaboration with AECEO Niagara Branch, the Early Childhood Community Development Centre (ECCDC), the Atkinson Charitable Foundation and Ryerson University.

A professional development event featuring a forum addressing the changes in the field and a second full day of concurrent workshops geared to professionals working in all facets of early childhood education.

Contact name: 
Association of Early Childhood Educators Ontario
Contact email: 
Contact phone: 
(416)487-3157
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A talk with Christa Japel on the Quebec system, quality, and a new pilot project she has launched

Location:
OISE/UT
252 Bloor Street West, 9th Floor, Room 105
Toronto
CA

An event presented by the Atkinson Centre for Society and Child Development.

Christa is an Associate Professor at the Université de Québec à Montréal.

She has helped develop instruments used in the National Longitudinal.

Study on Children and Youth and contributed to several papers based on NLSCY data.

Her interests include off -diagonal trajectories of development as well as increments in parental human capital and their impact on child development. She led a study from 2000 to 2004 examining the quality of the child care settings attended by the children participating in the Longitudinal Study of Child Development in Québec. The results of this study have generated considerable attention and are highly relevant for policy makers. She is engaged in a number of efforts to improve child care quality and professional work in the field.

Contact name: 
Zeenat Janmohamed
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SpeciaLink symposium: Early childhood inclusion-Applying lessons learned

Location:
University of Winnipeg Winnipeg
CA

SpeciaLink is pleased to announce that the Canadian Council on Learning has agreed to fund the project, Early Childhood Inclusion: Applying Lessons Learned Symposium & Source Book. This work will allow SpeciaLink to apply shared knowledge of early intervention and inclusive practices for children with special support needs. The national transdisciplinary gathering of researchers and the practice communities will be held August 21-23 2008 at the University of Winnipeg. In its lead-up, participants will help to develop the themes and symposium agenda; will influence the documentation which occurs through the event; and the subsequent writing of papers and bulletins, and the source book itself.

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The Science of Early Child Development

Location:
George Brown College, Ryerson Campus
99 Gerrard Street East, 6th floor computer lab
Toronto
CA

An event presented by the Atkinson Centre for Society and Child Development.

A full day seminar for early childhood instructors, program supervisors and early childhood educators. The session will take place in a computer lab so that participants can start exploring The Science of Early Child Development, an online, multimedia resource that includes readings, links, case studies and review games, as well as 100+ video clips.

Contact name: 
Lena Da Costa
Contact email: 
Contact phone: 
416-487-3157 ext. 22
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Early Childhood Educators of British Columbia 37th annual conference: Entre deux mers/ Between two seas--Bridging children and c

Location:
Best Western Richmond Hotel and Convention Centre
7551 Westminster Highway
Richmond
CA

ECEBC, Canadian Child Care Federation and University of Victoria School of Child and Youth Care jointly sponsor this annual conference.

International keynote presenters Janet Gonzalez Mena (US), Gunilla Dahlberg (Sweden), Helen May and Glenda MacNaughton (NZ) will speak to early childhood research, theory and practice, emerging issues, provocations and possibilities. Canadian perspectives (Carol Anne Wein, Pam Whitty) will be included to provide a truly sea to sea vision of early childhood care and education.

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A critical geography of 'neighborhood effects' in health and child development

Location:
Room 9-105, 252 Bloor St., OISE/UT Toronto
CA

Abstract: In a number of disciplines, there is an increasing interest in the 'effect' that attributes of collective social organization and the local built environment at neighborhood scale have on a variety of social outcomes, including health, health behaviors, early child development, youth delinquency, crime and deviance, political behavior, employment outcomes and other economic opportunities. A unifying feature of this kind of research is that it seeks to understand how, why and to what extent features of the local social environment, or neighborhood, shape individual outcomes over and above the effect of individual-level factors. I will identify some of the promise and pitfalls of neighborhood effects research, with emphasis on specific pathways between socio-economic dimensions of neighborhoods and both health and child development.

Bio: Dr. Jim Dunn holds a CIHR-PHAC Chair in Applied Public on Interventions in Residential Neighbourhoods and Population Health. He is a Research Scientist at the Centre for Research on Inner City Health (CRICH) at St. Michael's Hospital, Toronto, an Associate Professor of Geography and Public Health Sciences at the University of Toronto (UofT). His background is in the social geography of health, having earned a Ph.D. from Simon Fraser University in 1999. He is a member of the Editorial Advisory Board for Social Science and Medicine and Health Reports and has been a scientific advisor to a number of policy-related bodies, including the Privy Council Office of Canada, Health Canada, the National Housing Research Committee of Canada and the World Health Organization Regional Office for Europe. His research program focuses on questions regarding the social determinants of health and the influence of economic and social policies and programs on health inequalities, with a focus on urban housing and neighbourhoods.

Reception Following.

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