Excerpted from introduction
In 2017, the Canadian federal government released a Multilateral and Early Learning Child Care Framework to support families and communities in their efforts to ensure the best possible future for their children. In the same year, the Ontario government released a Renewed Early Years and Child Care Policy Framework after consultations with early childhood professionals to address the need for a high quality and accessible early learning and childcare services in the province. Finally, the Anti-Black Racism Strategy (2017) was also released by the Ontario government to target systemic racism in policies, decisions and programs, and to move towards long-term systemic change for Black Canadians across the province. All three policies are meant to govern the ways in which early childhood education, care and intervention services are delivered in intentional and anti-oppressive ways to ensure the equitable access and delivery of services. It is important to ask, since 2017, how have these policies worked together to affect change in the early childhood education and care sector, as well as systemic change for Black families? This brief seeks to examine the ways in which these policies intersect to address childhood disability, anti-Black racism and ultimately the Black experience of disabled childhoods.