Excerpts
The Yukon Government has recently completed a sector engagement and consultation to inform a review of the Child Care Act, which was first enacted in 1990, replacing the Day Care Act of 1980. The Minister of Education has committed to modernizing the Child Care Act with input from First Nations governments, the Yukon Child Care Board, stakeholders and Yukon residents. This engagement period, which was conducted between November 2023 and February 2024, is the third engagement on early learning and child care undertaken by the Yukon Government since 2018.
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Participants were asked their views about Yukon’s Early Learning and Child Care program’s four guiding principles: quality, affordability, accessibility and inclusion.
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In the engagement sessions with early childhood educators, owners and operators there was overwhelming support for an “early learning framework to guide educational programming in early learning and child care programs”. They also advocated for changing the references in the Child Care Act from “child care worker” to “early childhood educator”.
Other recommendations made were to create a community of practice and/or revive the child care association, and to introduce regular wage increases for early childhood educators to ensure retention.
There was support from First Nations government officials to teach their First Nations cultures in early learning and child care centres, as well as from the Francophone community to have access to services that are adapted to their linguistic and cultural needs.
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