The Childcare Resource and Research Unit is pleased to announce that we will launch a new website in September 2020. Since its creation in 1997, the CRRU website has been a vehicle for achieving one of CRRU’s primary objectives: to contribute to public debate and knowledgeable policy-making, advocacy and practice on early learning and child care through provision of information resources. Since then, childcarecanada.org has evolved to be a major source of resources on early learning and child care, not merely an organizational website.
Since its beginnings in the 1980s as part of the University of Toronto's Centre for Urban and Community Studies – funded first by the Ontario government, then the federal government – CRRU has been a central hub for resources, research and analysis on Canadian ELCC policy and practice through its resource library, original research, publications, policy expertise and the website.
When the federal government withdrew financial and other support for early learning and child care organizations, research and other child care related activities in 2007, CRRU became an independent non-profit. The website remained an integral part of our activities.
Today childcarecanada.org provides a curated catalogue of about 25,000 “resources” about early childhood education and care, family policy and related social issues – documents, news articles, videos, audio and collections. This includes our own publications and many others – reports from organizations and governments, academic articles, policy briefs, positions and developments, video and audio from across Canada and internationally. These are all part of a key word searchable database, which we add to on an ongoing basis, notifying subscribers about new additions via a weekly curated e-broadcast.
When the aging-out of our website’s platform made a major revamp necessary, we considered how to make the new site more accessible and useful. The renovated site will continue to use the same website address to provide all our resources to the researchers, policy experts, advocates, policy makers, academics, students, early childhood educators, parents and all other communitymembers who use them.
The new site includes some significant improvements:
- Improved search functionality of the Online Documents Catalogue
- An expanded Resources menu
- A device-friendly interface
- Capability to add new features easily as needed
- A new, yet familiar, look.
All resources from the current site will continue to be accessible. As we make the transition, we will be asking for your feedback on the new site from a user point of view – check the bottom of each page for easy access to feedback form. We will be fine-tuning the website and adding new topics and features going forward. As well, we will provide improved information about how to make the best use of the website's features, such as the improved online key word search.
Users of the new website will see that it is titled “Resources for building a system of early childhood education and child care for all”. The Childcare Resource and Research Unit has always had a “goal of early childhood education and care for all; it is fundamental to women’s equality and a right for all children”. As child care has been affirmed as an essential element in the social infrastructure of 21st century countries — a view broadened and deepened by the pandemic experience—the resources gathered, curated and made available at childcarecanada.org can play a useful role in moving towards the universal ELCC system that Canada and Canadians need.
To be notified about the launch of the new website, and weekly additions to the website, you can subscribe to CRRU’s weekly e-news.
Thank you for your ongoing support.
- Martha Friendly, Executive Director, Childcare Resource and Research Unit