Description:

Join us at the third annual Summer Institute on Early Childhood Development for a series of workshops, group discussions, and panel presentations.

Leaders in early childhood development will come together at the event to think about what we are learning from Toronto First Duty experiences and where we need to go next.

Toronto First Duty Project (TFD)

Goals: Toronto First Duty is an experiment designed to demonstrate integrated community-based early childhood program delivery and to transform public policy.

* What did we find out about programs, policies and practice from Toronto First Duty?

* How can we use Toronto First Duty experiences to build a community of research-practitioners?

* What do the findings and recommendations from Toronto First Duty tell us about the professional education and development of an early childhood workforce?

* What can we learn about community-level monitoring of children's growth and development from Toronto First Duty?

* What next for public policy?

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Program outline
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8:30 a.m. Registration and Coffee

9:00 a.m. Welcome Remarks
- Anne Sado, President, George Brown College.

9:15 a.m. Toronto First Duty Research Findings
- Dr. Carl Corter, Principal Investigator, Toronto First Duty Research, Atkinson Charitable Foundation Chair in Early Child Development and Education and Professor, Human Development and Applied Psychology/Institute of Child Study at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education/University of Toronto.

10:00 p.m. Questions from Media

10:30 p.m. Coffee Break

11:00 a.m. Panel Discussion
- Patricia Chorney Rubin, Moderator, Chair, Center for Early Childhood Development, George Brown College.
- Dr. Donna Lero, Co-Director of the Centre for Families, Work and Well-Being, and Associate Professor at the University of Guelph.
- Dr. Ray Peters, Research Director, Better Beginnings, Better Future and Professor Emeritus, Psycology, Queen's University.
- Fidelia Torres, Site Coordinator, York Early Years, Toronto First Duty.

12:00 p.m. Question and Answer Period

12:30 p.m. Lunch

1:30 p.m.
- Workshop A
Living and Learning in Communities: How Early Learning and Development
curriculum has grown to include the child's many communities.
Marie Goulet,
ECE Faculty, George Brown College

- Workshop B
How to Communicate about Integrated Early Childhood Programs.
Kerry McCuaig,
Better Child Care Education.

-Workshop C
A Holistic Model for Supporting Inclusion Quality; What We Know and What is Needed in areas of Training and Policy Development.
Dr. Donna Lero, Ph.D and Kathy Brophy, PH.D,
Department of Family Relations and
Applied Nutrition, University of Guelph.

- Workshop D
Perspectives on Quality in Early Learning and Child Care and the
Implications for the Workforce.
Jane Beach,
Social Policy Consultant.

- Workshop E
Exploring Social and Economic Factors on Early Childhood Educators:
An Introduction to Three Projects.
Dr. Rachel Langford,
ECE Faculty, George Brown College.
Zeenat Janmohammed,
ECE Faculty, George Brown College.

- Workshop F
Healthy Child Screening.
Joyce Allan,
Co-ordinator, Queen Victoria Partners for Early Learning, Toronto First Duty

3:30 p.m. Panel Discussion – Next Steps for Public Policy
Martha Friendly, Childcare Resource and Research Unit, University of Toronto.
Dr. Charles Pascal, Atkinson Charitable Foundation.

4:45 p.m. Closing Remarks – Looking Ahead to Next Year
Dr. Janet Astington, Chair Human Development and Applied Psychology Ontario Institute for Studies in Education/University of Toronto

5:00 p.m. Wine and Cheese Reception
George Brown College, Centre for Early Childhood Development – Award Presentation.
Recipient: Martha Friendly

The 16th EECERA Annual Conference, Democracy and Culture in Early Childhood Education, will be held in Iceland, a Nordic country where democracy has been the foundation of society and where one of the oldest parliaments in the world was established.

The first theme of the conference is the role of early childhood education in creating a democratic society. If children have the opportunity to practice democracy through decision-making, communication, negotiation and participation in projects of relevance, they will be likely to encourage the formation and growth of democracy in their societies. The conference aims to raise important and urgent questions about democracy in early childhood settings. Is it important? What does it mean? How do we practice it? Where will it lead?

Culture is the second theme of the conference, which aims to ask critical questions such as: How can children contribute to and create the wider culture? How is a society's culture reflected in its early childhood education? How do early childhood programs in each country adapt ideas from other countries to their own culture? What is the influence of globalization on early childhood education?

Keynote speakers:

- Prof. Hrafnhildur Ragnarsdottir, Iceland University of Education: "What can Cross-Linguistic Studies of Children's Language Acquisition Tell us About the Role of Culture in Development?"

- Prof. Barbara Rogoff, University of California, Santa Cruz: "Learning through Observation and Collaboration in Sociocultural Activities."

- Prof. Lars Dencik, Roskilde University, Denmark: "Parent-Child Relationships in Early Childhood in Contemporary Welfare Societies."

- Prof. Peter Moss, University of London: "Bringing Politics into the Nursery: Early Childhood Education as a Locus for Democratic Practice."

- Prof. Joseph Tobin, Arizona State University: "Children of Recent Immigrants in ECEC Settings in Five Countries: Parent and Teacher Perspectives."

We are focusing on important Children's Issues and we hope that you will come out to hear where the politicians stand on issues of child care, children's poverty, housing etc. We are counting on you to bring out your friends, family, and co-workers – people who you know would be interested in this debate-to inform their decision on Election Day January 23, 2006.

This event is brought to you by: The Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care; The Toronto Coalition for Better Child Care; the AECEO - Association of Early Childhood Educators Ontario, and Campaign 2000.

The AECEO is excited to announce their upcoming conference, co-hosted by the Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care. The event will organize lobby prep workshops and lobby sessions with all of the MPP's and the Premier. This session will allow delegates an opportunity to address their local representatives. Various Common Table groups will contribute to the workshop sessions.

The decisions that Canadians make today about early learning and child care will have an impact for decades to come. And often the experiences of other countries can serve as an inspiring model - or a cautionary tale. As part of its work to help provide informed discussion and debate around policy-making decisions, the Canadian Council on Social Development is sponsoring a Briefing Session with Australian social policy analyst Lynne Wannan. Ms. Wannan has just spent the last four weeks criss-crossing Canada to talk about the lessons Australia has learned since it began changing its funding for child care in 1991. During her Canadian travels, Ms. Wannan also listened to the experiences of a cross-section of parents, front-line workers, policy-makers, and municipal and provincial bureaucrats and politicians. The combination of her Canadian learnings and her knowledge of the Australian experience creates a unique information package, adding significant knowledge about this important issue. Ms. Wannan's briefing session will include information about the following: - Access to child care for immigrants, Aboriginal populations, children with special needs, and low-income and rural families; - The status of community-based child care programs and those run by small owner/operators; - Increased resources needed to monitor and prosecute violations; - Training and working conditions for those in ELCC. This presentation will be her last before she returns to Australia. Following the briefing, there will be an opportunity for a short question and answer period.

The Common Table was formed in February 2005 in an effort to promote collaboration in advocacy and the delivery of services to children and families. Terms of reference and recommendations were struck and interest in the Common Table continues to grow among many provincial stakeholders and grassroots agencies.

The Common Table forum will bring together policy developers and advocates from across the province to discuss the implementation of the group's recommendations. The forum will also be addressing the province's Best Start Plan and how the recommendations can affect it.

This important all-day provincial forum will include workshops and an expert panel. The Hon. Mary Anne Chambers, Minister for Children and Youth Services, has also been invited to address the forum.

Symposium overview:

The purpose of this symposium is to generate a discussion in Canada about the policy changes that would be needed to bring about integration for kindergarten age children. The OECD Report suggested that reconciling the differences between kindergarten and child care is a prerequisite to achieving a coherent system of early education and care in Canada. It explained that the advantages of bringing together early education and care within integrated departments include: a more unified approach; more effective investment producing greater savings; improved public supervision leading to higher quality; more coherent policy and consistency; and, enhanced continuity of children's early childhood experiences.

Achieving integration of kindergarten and child care services in Canada will require a major paradigm shift for all involved. Because both education and child care are in the provincial jurisdiction, each province and territory will need to devise its own strategies. Each will also need to respond to the same challenges. These will be comprised of both "structural" and "conceptual" components.

The symposium will focus on four key concerns:
- program design and delivery;
- program framework (curriculum);
- the reorganization of the workforce;
- and governance and funding issues, bringing experts from across Canada and around the world to contribute their knowledge to the Canadian experience.

Objectives:

- To stimulate active, positive interaction
- To find solutions to the fragmentation of the two systems: Education and Child Care

This event is a free public lecture by Gunilla Dahlberg, professor at the Stockholm Institute of Education and author of "Ethics and Politics in Early Childhood Education". It is offered through the University of British Columbia's Institute for Early Childhood Education and Research, as part of their Summer Institute, "In Dialogue with Reggio Emilia: Examining Principles of the Reggio Emilia Pedagogical Philosophy".

This is an opportunity for scholars, analysts, policy makers and activists to share ideas about building equitable communities.

The bilingual forum is a diverse mix of the practical and the theoretical. It will highlight what works, what doesn't work and what could work. Participants will come away with new information and ideas about how theories can be turned into responsive policies and programs.

The conference will feature a mixture of keynotes, plenaries, workshops and roundtables to maximize opportunity for presentation and discussion. Most sessions are to be held at the Wu Conference Centre at the Fredericton campus of the University of New Brunswick in the stimulating context of this bilingual and bicultural province.

An international conference exploring the importance or architecture and design chaired by Kirsty Wark.

This international conference is the culmination of a program of work examining the function and importance of architecture and design for young children, explored in issue eight of Children in Europe magazine.

The conference, held in Edinburgh will:
- Promote the importance of good design in creating space for young children
- Share best practice with study visits in Scotland and presentations from architects, academics and practitioners from Finland, Norway and Reggio Emilia in Italy and elsewhere.
- Showcase the winner and five runners-up of the international award for architecture and design for young children

The conference includes a choice of study visits to Glasgow, Stirling and Edinburgh.