The Childcare Resource and Research Unit (CRRU) is a non-profit, non-partisan policy research institute with a mandate to work towards an equitable, high quality, publicly funded, inclusive early learning and child care (ELCC) system for all Canadians.
Our primary child care and family policy lens is firmly feminist, intersectional, and equality-seeking with reference both to women as child care users and women working in the child care workforce. CRRU has long been actively engaged in raising awareness that quality ELCC is essential to achieving multiple purposes and serving several main groups simultaneously – women, children, families, the broader society, and the economy. First and foremost among child care’s purposes is women’s equality and economic security. We take the perspective that solid data, research, information, policy analysis, and knowledge are important tools for raising awareness, advocating, and developing public policy on child care. This is central to advancing women's equality, as well as meeting other goals.
CRRU works with other researchers, other women’s organizations, NGOs, social justice organizations, advocacy groups, labour unions, the child care community, and government policy makers across multiple levels of government.
What we stand and work for
Mandate
CRRU’s original, and continuing, mandate is to work to bring about a universal, publicly funded, high quality, inclusive, and public/not-for-profit early learning and child care system in Canada. CRRU’s primary lens on early learning and child care is feminist and intersectional, but our work spans ELCC’s multiple purposes and target groups, which are linked to one another.
What we do
- Collect, organize, and disseminate relevant research, policy, and practice focused on ELCC and related topics, both our own and others
- Communicate about research, policy, and practice on ELCC, family policy (such as parental leave), and related social issues (such as gender and employment) through multiple mediums to other researchers, policy makers, feminist and social justice groups, the child care community, families, and the public
- Engage in a variety of kinds of policy-related ELCC and social policy research
- Work with and support others – other researchers, other women’s organizations, governments, community groups, and NGOs – with similar mandates and philosophies who are engaged in ELCC research, advocacy, and policy development.
Among CRRU's key activities during the past 30 years have been the Early Childhood Education and Care in Canada reports, developed and published by CRRU approximately every two years. This report series is unique in a number of ways. As such, it has reliably served as Canada’s main source of consistently collected and presented, cross-Canada, longitudinal data and information about regulated child care, kindergarten, and parental leave.
Land acknowledgement
The CRRU team works across Turtle Island, on the land now known as Canada. The CRRU is located in downtown Toronto, the traditional land of the Anishinaabeg, the Haudenosaunee, the Huron-Wendat, and the Mississaugas of the Credit. This territory is covered by the Dish with One Spoon Wampum Belt Covenant, a treaty between the Anishinaabeg, the Haudenosaunee, and allied nations that outlines a commitment to peacefully share and care for the land and resources around the Great Lakes.
A universally accessible, publicly funded, and inclusive early learning and child care system across Canada must be shaped in partnership with First Nations, Métis, and Inuit perspectives, ensuring it is responsive to the needs, values, and priorities of Indigenous children, families, and communities. As a Canada-wide policy research organization, CRRU is committed to working proactively with Indigenous partners to address systemic barriers and improve access to early childhood education and care services rooted in Indigenous knowledge, cultures, and ways of living.
Contact CRRU
Telephone: 416-926-9264