The Government of Canada is seeking input about how its Early Learning and Child Care (ELCC) funding is working for families. The federal government committed over $7.5 billion over five years to partner with provinces, territories, Indigenous partners, and ELCC operators with the goal of ensuring all families in Canada to have access to regulated, high-quality, affordable, flexible, and inclusive ELCC.  

Some families of children with disabilities are benefiting from subsidies and are satisfied with the child care their child accesses. Whether you have had positive experiences with accessing child care or faced barriers that prevented you from accessing any child care, this engagement is an opportunity to make the federal government aware of what supports families of children with disabilities need from the ELCC system.  

Inclusive early learning and child care benefits all children, including those with disabilities, in multiple ways.  However, unlike the public education system, children with disabilities are not entitled to services. When children are excluded, they not only miss out on the developmental benefits, but their parents may have to leave the workforce, potentially pushing the family into financial insecurity or even long-term poverty.     

In the past year, over 30 families contacted Inclusion Alberta for advocacy with ELCC challenges such as:   

1. refusal of child care operators to admit children with disabilities 
2. waiting months without access to child care until Family Supports for Children with Disabilities (FSCD) program approved funding for an aide in child care 
3. partial exclusion when an operator admits a child for only a partial day 
4. quality issues when operators fail to meet a child’s disability-related needs 
5. expulsion of a child when staff struggled to meet disability-related support needs 

CBC Edmonton has reported here and here about the barriers parents face accessing child care in Alberta for children with disabilities. 

The provincial government and the federal government have made some efforts to ensure that ELCC is available to children with disabilities. Families can access navigational support through the Inclusive Child Care (ICC) program, a program the Government of Alberta delivers under their ELCC funding agreement with the Government of Canada. For operators who choose to access it, ICC also provides coaching and professional learning for educators on including children with extra support needs, and collaborative planning and coordinated access to additional supports. In cases where the operator decides that the child requires one-to-one support, the family must apply for this through FSCD.  

It’s urgent that the federal government hear about how some of these investments in making ELCC more affordable and expanding the number of spaces are leaving behind some families of children with disabilities. Families are invited to respond to any of the questions in the discussion guide that align with their priorities, challenges, and experiences. Inclusion Alberta has identified eight of the twenty-five sets of questions (see below) that are especially relevant to the experiences of parents of children with disabilities. There are other questions on Indigenous peoples, the ELCC workforce, Official Language Minority Communities, and the expansion of ELCC spaces.

Send your feedback via email by September 16, 2024:

Please send your feedback in a format you prefer to ESDC.ELCCER-AGJERE.EDSC@hrsdc-rhdcc.gc.ca by September 16, 2024. 

Inclusion Alberta encourages you to send a separate email with your feedback to Tanis Liebreich, Assistant Deputy Minister for Child Care Strategy and Policy in the Government of Alberta – Tanis.liebreich@gov.ab.ca.  

Inclusion Alberta would like to know about your experiences in ELCC and the feedback you’re giving to government, as this will inform our advocacy. Please consider copying pney@inclusionalberta.org on these emails to government.   

Questions relevant to children with disabilities and access to ELCC:

You can download the PDF of the government of Canada’s ‘Discussion Guide’ on this topic here.

1. What does access to high-quality, affordable, flexible, and inclusive ELCC mean to you? 
2. What do you think a successful Canada-wide ELCC system looks like? 
3. What priorities would you, your community, and/or your organization like to see addressed by the Canada-wide ELCC system? 
4. What is your current experience in accessing ELCC? How does intersectionality (the ways diverse aspects of a person’s identity can expose them to overlapping forms of discrimination and marginalisation) impact that experience, if it does? 
5. What does ELCC that meets your needs look like? How can a Canada-wide ELCC system work towards helping you access the care you need (e.g., location, hours of operation, affordability, culturally relevant, etc.)? 
6. What are the current barriers to access for children of diverse populations and their families that you experience or see in your community? What do you think is the cause? 
7. What are the current barriers to access for children with disabilities/varying abilities and their families that you experience or see in your community? What do you think is the cause? 
8. How can we collect better data about the ELCC needs of children and families from diverse populations in ways that empower these communities?