Discussion #4: The Ministry of Education and Child Care’s Inclusive Child Care Strategy Summary
Notice: This discussion is now closed. All comments have been collected as part of the overall work to design an effective system of services for children and youth with support needs. For an overview of other discussions related to children and youth with support needs, visit the online discussions page.
The Ministry of Education and Child Care (ECC) engaged with families, child care professionals, community partners and others from 2023 to early 2024 to understand their experiences in supporting, providing and accessing affordable, high quality inclusive child care. Engagement focused on understanding the barriers and opportunities to accessing child care for children and youth with support needs, as well as others experiencing inequity.
Further development, engagement and consultation is needed, and actions will be taken to collaboratively plan this with First Nations, including Modern Treaty Nations, the First Nations Leadership Council (FNLC) and Indigenous organizations including Métis Nation BC. Further engagement with families and child care providers is also needed to more deeply inform the specific work required to move towards inclusive child care as a core service.
Three main themes emerged through engagement:
- Inequity of access to child care: Families are having difficulty finding and accessing child care that meets their unique needs. There are not enough spaces available for all families; spaces that are available are easier for some to access than others; and to secure a spot some families may have to compromise their needs, choose a lower-quality program or pay additional fees.
- Exclusion of children with support needs: Children with support needs are being excluded from child care disproportionate to their peers without support needs. Unlike the education system, child care is not a rights-based system. Child care professionals may be working with an outdated and culturally-biased understanding of inclusion and the current model of support is not meeting demand.
- Limited support for an inclusion and equity-focused workforce: The child care workforce is not well supported to deliver inclusive, culturally safe child care to families and children of all backgrounds and abilities. Barriers to accessing education and certification has resulted in a lack of child care professionals who represent the diversity of the communities they serve. Early childhood educators (ECEs) are not required to learn about inclusion and cultural safety in post-secondary programs, and they do not always have access to professional development to support building these skills.
The experiences and expertise shared through these engagements informed the development of the Inclusive Child Care (ICC) Strategy which is intended to build a foundation that:
- Embeds equity and inclusion in all aspects of child care;
- Supports providers in gaining the knowledge and skills to provide inclusive child care; and
- Meets the specific needs of children who are neurodiverse, have a disability or have other support needs.
Supported Child Development (SCD) and Aboriginal Supported Child Development (ASCD) programs are a part of the Inclusive Child Care Strategy. These programs support the inclusion of children with support needs into child care programs by offering individual planning, mentoring to child care staff on inclusive practice and, when necessary, extra staffing.
SCD and ASCD programs are funded by the Ministry of Children and Family Development (MCFD) and the Ministry of Education and Child Care (ECC) and are delivered by contracted agencies. Over the past five years, these programs have received funding increases through provincial and federal investments, providing opportunities for more children to be supported. However, the new investments are not meeting the demand as waitlists continue for SCD and ASCD programs.
MCFD is engaging with families, service providers, community partners and First Nations rights and title holders to inform the design of an effective system of services for children and youth with support needs. In alignment with a one-government approach, once MCFD engagement has concluded, the engagement findings from ECC and MCFD will be used to build on early actions to enable the full inclusion of children with support needs into child care programs.
You can view the Inclusive Child Care Strategy and Engagement Report by visiting the webpage: Inclusive Child Care resources and supports – Province of British Columbia (gov.bc.ca)
Discussion question
In order to make good use of ideas from concerned parties, the Province is asking you to consider the following questions for your review and comment.
Please use the comment box below to respond.
- Describe what belonging in child care could look like for children with support needs? What is needed to achieve this vision of belonging?
- What is needed to better support inclusive child care for children with support needs?
Inclusive should not mean forcing children with diverse needs to manage an entire day in a busy child care program so their parent can work. Their needs are different and often, MUCH higher than is possible to maintain in a child care program. Programs and educators can only do so much and these children’s actual needs are not being met. At the same time, educators are burning out at an alarming rate trying to “make it work” for fear of not being “inclusive”. Should these children be isolated from others? Absolutely not. But should they just be expected to cope and manage with daycare? Absolutely not.
We need programs that are specially designed to meet these children’s needs and have QUALIFIED staff working alongside them in very small ratios within centres. Maybe the child joins for part of the day? Maybe the child has alternating days, with the off days receiving specialized care. What is best for that child!?
Having, mainly, under qualified staff join a room to “support” the whole class does nothing for the children who truly need extra support.
Shared responsibility only works if the support that is sent your way is fully qualified and a consistent member of your team. Currently, this so FAR from the case.
As an ECE who has worked with SCD and loved it, it has recently come to my attention that my insurance does not cover having a support person in place. Ask this creates a liability issue how will government be able to address this? I am not willing to put myself at risk without full coverage for myself.
AS a SCD contract holder we hold all insurance coverage for our staff. WCB, lability and abuse coverage.
1. Inclusion really means providing what the child needs for a positive experience understanding and taking into account their challenges and the needs of every child in the program. acceptance that inclusion does not mean every child should be in a childcare center. It is not correct to think that every child can fit into a childcare program. Inclusive care considers reduced hours. small groups. individual workers for meaningful connection. certified staff with experience. understanding what the child can cope with (length of time away from home in a setting). adjusting expectations. helping family understand child’s needs rather than expecting child to cope in a setting all day. revised child to staff ratios. training. funding for additional workers. recognizing different levels of disability or developmental delay.
2. Individual one to one workers. spaces with a variety of equipment to meet child’s needs, allowing decompression, processing, venting. experienced staff. team of staff. connection with family. funding. more than one setting, maybe in a center for three hours in the morning with follow up care in the home to support parents and child’s experience. funding and funding.
Most importantly, always look at the experience of care through the eyes of the child as part of a group.
Fund SCD programs enough to avail funding for each child care program- An extra hand when dealing with additional support needs is CRUCIAL.
Subsidize School-Age Child care worker wages so it’s worth staying in a job that requires dedication. Half the problem is the high turnover of staffing because of inequality in pay due to only ever subsidizing early childhood educators.
Create an affordable educational requirement for school-age child care workers that gives a chance for new-to-industry workers to be successful.
Child care is not the same as a half-day training session on how to work a cash register and stock shelves. Invest in our present and future.
Child Care
How does a family that makes up to $111,000 a year, while Government promising $10 a day daycare; but the families that are single parents, have a child with disabilities that cannot go to school due to his disabilities and must have his daycare at home due to his disabilities – your government provides me with a measly $278 per month ($128 for Child Care Benefit and $150 for disability), I am paying over $3,000 a month for a nanny on a wage of $48,000 per year. Why does a family that makes over double what I make have their daycare pretty much paid for? Makes absolutely no sense. Rewarding the middle to upper class while low income with a child with special needs continues to pay almost full daycare.
Let’s put this into perspective:
Parents with a 5 year old child that is completely healthy and goes to a normal daycare facility, the family income is under $111,000 will receive their already allotted amount with up to an ADDITIONAL $550 added for daycare expenses.
I have an 8 year old child who has mental, emotional and physical disabilities and is mentally and emotionally at a 5 year old’s level that cannot go to a normal daycare facility due to his mental health so he must have his daycare provided within the home, the family income is just over $41,000 a year and I am receiving $278.77 funding (total). This means my monthly daycare bill is over $2,500 and I am a single parent making $41,000 per year.
District Schools
I cannot register my son at a District School because he needs a full time EA/BI with experience in behavioural issues. You do not provide the School District enough funding to provide my son the services. Not all special needs children can get along in a school/classroom settings which is over stimulating. Why are you not giving our special needs children the same consideration you give Alternate kids?? In a lot of School Districts in BC Alternate Programs run within a school but has an area in the school assigned for Alternate use (basically a school within a school). Why can you not provide this type of accommodation for our special needs children where our children can feel safe, not over stimulated by large classes and noisy crowded hallways. I do not believe our Ministry of Education gives our children the services that they require to grow. Each school or designated schools within each School District needs a school within a school or a school within a school district to teach our children at the levels they require. The system currently in place is not working for my son or many other special needs children. I am constantly seeing children having to leave their school due the school not having the resources needed. Such a disappointment for families and their children.
Funding, funding, funding
Training
Staff development
Consistent access to professionals
Reform of child:staff ratios that allow for better access to staff for children
What belonging in child care could look like? Like a child without support needs. I am not even sure how to describe that. The child would feel equal, whole, supported, happy, included, confident, just like any other kid.
For children with support needs, belonging looks like an environment set up for success with areas and materials supporting development, with room to grow and thrive alongside.
Qualified Early Childhood Educators with drive to work with and support children with support needs are extremely needed and necessary. With that, qualified Support Workers are needed as well. Without support staff that shadow/provide one on one support, children with support needs are being set up for failure.
I have been in childcare for over 35 years, so as you can imagine, I have worked with many children with needs. I have observed children with and without support. Adequate support is crucial for a struggling child; it helps to address the child’s social-emotional needs and empowers the teachers and the children to take time for the extra help they need.
It is highly essential to have support workers educated and educating childcare educators on how tk support children with special needs. Working in this field I have heard a lot of stories about well reputed childcare centre’s not accepting support needed children or making them pay extra amount to have them in childcare environment.
Childcare has a long way to go before it can truly be considered inclusive. Families often endure lengthy waitlists, sometimes stretching over several years, just to receive a diagnosis. After that, they face additional delays before they can start services for their children. Many centers want to be inclusive, but the high child-to-educator ratios required by BC regulations make it nearly impossible to provide safe, inclusive care for everyone. Supported childcare services also face long waitlists, meaning families can’t access the support they need until a childcare space becomes available. This creates a frustrating cycle where children can’t attend childcare, and childcare providers can’t accept new children.
I have a child in a school-age program with an ASD diagnosis who needs specific supports to succeed and fully participate. Unfortunately, supported child development services have recently stopped supporting school-age programs, leaving many families struggling to secure care or losing childcare spaces because their children no longer receive the necessary support. The ratio in school-age programs is often 1:12 or 1:15, which is too high. BC’s current standards place less qualified individuals with the highest child-to-educator ratios, affecting the age group that would benefit most from qualified educators.
As a parent, I face the difficult decision of using our Autism funding to hire additional support (instead of being able to use it on therapies that she truly needs) to ensure my child has a positive and successful experience or not hiring support and risking that my child won’t receive the care she deserves because educators are stretched too thin due to current policies and regulations. To improve childcare, we need smaller ratios, more qualified Early Childhood Educators (rather than Early Childhood Educator Assistants), additional childcare spaces, and increased support within classrooms. If early intervention were integrated into childcare settings with adequate support, and if kindergarten began at age 6 or 7, many children would be far better prepared emotionally for their school experience.
Inclusive child care welcomes all children and families. It goes beyond accessibility. Inclusive child care is welcoming and supportive. Inclusive child care providers work with families and other community providers to adapt their program so that all children can participate meaningfully. Parents need to feel that their child is safe and valued and that there are enough qualified staff to support all children in care. Ratios in child care are currently too high for this to be a reality without augmented funding for enhanced ratio supports.
The current model of SCD funding for specified children does not promote inclusive thinking around universal design and the waitlist for children throughout the province for SCD service delays their ability to attend meaningfully if the child care program does not have the financial means to hire additional staff. For programs to be truly inclusive they need to be staffing above ratio so that there are enough educators to support children, adapt programing, and take the time to build meaningful relationships with families and children. All families should be able to access the care need in their community and not feel that they are a burden or receiving something “extra”.
We need more funding for enhanced ratio staffing for programs committed to inclusion and a shift in mind set regarding inclusion support – from 1:1 thinking to lower ratios. I think that additional SCD funding could be used in such a way as to support all children in child care that may or may not have identified support needs. Funding could be monitored and supported by SCD at a more global level than the current child specific model that is in place creating a more stable work force and inclusive working arrangements for staff.
My comments are specific to medically complex and very dependent children that need 1:1 support 24/7.
Theme 1 which speaks to the inequity of access to child care, completely ignores one of the biggest barriers and inequitable situations that our families experience while trying to access child care. That is the scarcity of funding and inequitable access to funding for child care support through the Supported Child Development Program (SCDP).
The government has an opportunity to remove this barrier for families but chooses not to by completely under funding the SCDP.
If all of our families had fulsome access to this funding, including broad access to the “In Own Home” funding option, we would be empowered to fulfill our child care needs and could find flexible options to suit our needs. At times our children’s needs may best be met in the home environment. We need this access to start in the very early years and continue into adulthood.
Adequate funding has the power to change the narrative for families raising medically complex kids in BC from financial instability and poverty, to one where we have equitable opportunities to join the workforce.
Adequate funding also has the power to change the narrative for our children from one where exclusion reigns to one where all children are supported to participate fully and belong without question.
I will start with one of the most fundamental and powerful change that would ensure children with exceptionalities are at least given the opportunity to participate in childcare. If a childcare wishes to be licensed and receive any type of financial assistance from the government or the services of Supported Child Development, they cannot exclude any child from their centre. In short get rid of the caveat that childcares can refuse entry to any child if they feel they cannot meet their needs. Schools cannot exclude children with exceptionalities why are childcares any different? If a child cannot even get in the door, how can they be included and participate?
Embrace and enshrine the philosophy of shared responsibility and move away from the exclusionary philosophy and language of 1:1. All adults in a childcare setting regardless of which program they are from should share the responsibility for the care and education of all the children in the childcare program. No child has a “1:1 staff” that when that staff is absent or missing leads to that child’s exclusion from childcare because they are the only one who knows the child.
Secondly besides being exclusionary the staffing of a 1:1 model of support for children with exceptionalities is unsustainable and a core reason for long waitlist for some Supported Child Development programs. With a model of shared responsibility instead of one person per one child you can have one support person support several children when they need it as part of an inclusionary childcare team.
Ensure that shared responsibility and inclusion are a central philosophy taught in the ECE certification programs.
With an epidemiology of 1:29 children being diagnosed with Autism in BC it is essential that that Autism and related supported therapies be a much larger part taught in the ECE certification programs rather than the small part it is currently.
Eliminate the ECE SE as a separate program and make it a core part of ECE certification programs.
Eliminate the ECE A certification as a certificate. On the ground many are unprepared for the realities of a fast-paced diverse childcare setting and the diversity of needs they are presented with.
Make the ECE certification more in depth and the one and only certification and pay them like the professionals they are.
Smaller ratios and class sizes are needed to better support the philosophy of shared responsibility and inclusive childcare for children with support needs and children in general.
Ensure that shared responsibility and inclusion are a central philosophy when reviewing and revising childcare licensing requirements.
Belonging in child care for children with support needs should be a service that is offered to ALL children, whether they are in a licensed facility or not. To achieve this vision of belonging, this service needs to be accessible to ALL children, independent of the type of child care centre/facility/program/etc. they attend. To better support inclusive child care for children with support needs, this service needs to be available to ALL children without any licensing barriers.
Belonging in childcare with children with extra support needs can be seamless. It means understanding/accepting children for who they are and meeting them at their level. It means looking at expectations and reflecting to see if they are realistic or not. Understand that most adaptations can be useful for many children in the program.
In order to meet this need educators would need to have a better understanding or neurodivergent children. Understand how to play/engage with children who have ASD or ADHD. Educators would need to understand that some children need different adaptations/materials in order to be successful. Have a better understanding for the use of visuals, calm down areas and fidgets. Most educators don’t have a clear vision of what belonging means for children with extra needs.
More funding for resources and training. Have all ECE’s graduate with their special needs. Offer training for ECE’s in the field with experience to transfer their experience to an extra special needs & IT certificate
Belonging in child care for children that require culturally sensitive and appropriate support would include:
One-on-one or one-on-two culturally sensitive and appropriate support on a daily basis
The support worker would also need to work with the staff at the child care program and the family, to ensure that the culturally sensitive and appropriate strategies being implemented would be followed as a continuum of care
The supported child would also need culturally sensitive and appropriate support throughout transitions within the child care program and when transitioning to other publicly funded educational institutions.
Easy and prompt access to specialized equipment or culturally sensitive and appropriate resources
Low wages for ECE employees do not entice qualified professionals. It is too difficult to live off an hourly wage of $19-$22 in today’s economy. Why would someone spend money and time on education to only make $22/hour? They can make more money not going to school and choosing an other area of employment eg: server, laborer
Describe what belonging in child care could look like for children with support needs? What is needed to achieve this vision of belonging?
Belonging would look like being accepted and accompanied with open arms from the beginning of the daycare experience, to the end. It encompasses a center philosophy of relationships at the center, and is reflected on how admissions, communication and guidance are done. Belonging would look like the community understanding that beside the special needs, the child and family are excited, nervous and looking forward to accessing care as much as their “typical” peers.
Belonging looks like a modern view on neurodiversity, intersectionality, and the reality that the world is looking more “multicolored” in every aspect.
What is needed to better support inclusive child care for children with support needs?
-Societal views about children and families with disabilities could support a more compassionate approach.
-Enhanced ratio to meet all children’s needs, focus on preventative, universal strategies and staff health. With licensing requirements looking at bare minimum, many centers cannot advocate for more funding for staffing.
-Mandatory, engaging, ongoing and supportive training for ECEs that include special needs, and not make it a separate, optional “specialty”. When it is viewed as a choice or a niche to work with special needs children, centers can operate from a non inclusive stand (our center is not built for children with sn, we don’t have the training, etc)
-Increased budget to Supported Child Development so that more classrooms can children can access support funds to increase capacity, inclusion and family support.
We urgently need a respite worker. We have an autistic kid and urgently looking for fund for respite worker
Every educator should strive to create an environment where every child feels known, seen, and loved. However, this isn’t always easy. Thankfully, I believe that this last year, I created an environment for all the children in my program, including those with support needs. It was often done through language, including the educators, normalizing how everyone’s brain works differently. Another aspect that helped cultivate this culture of belonging was clear communication with the families and actively trying new strategies. I discovered that my undergraduate in psychology and personal experience with children with support needs, were a HUGE asset when it came to creating an environment for all students to thrive. It has also helped me to be a student of my students and figure out what they need to be successful. I firmly believe that a majority of the tools that we can/should be used with students with support needs should be engrained in the culture/environment of the classroom so it isn’t obvious and it actually benefits the other students as well. For example, having clear routines and expectations helps everyone or infographics about the routine.
Personally, I think that smaller ratios and class sizes are needed to better support inclusive child care for children with support needs and children in general. The class sizes are too large. This past year, we had a class of 20 children with several students whom I suspected support needs, and as the year progressed, I saw how draining it was on my staff to help meet their needs. It was just two educators, myself and my assistant educator who is relatively new to the field. I witnessed how one child, in particular, could change the entire classroom dynamic, and another child responded to the presence of this child. I also witnessed how children were impacted by the growing number of students as we started off the year with 10 and ended with 18 and their increased need for support. As I enter into a new program year with 25 students and two other educators, I am nervous to know if I can meet all the support needs that are returning and incoming. Providing finances for a one-on-one aide is also needed within these settings, preferably someone who would be willing to continue with the child through at least elementary school.
Aside from classroom sizes, there needs to be better parental support for children with support needs and education for them. I also believe there should be more professional development opportunities for educators to learn current strategies and research various conditions that require support. These opportunities should be able to be done during the school year and at times that convenient for Early Childhood Educators. Like teachers, we would greatly benefit by having ECEs and ECEAs gather together annually to learn more from one another.
Belonging would start with childcare situations accepting the reality of children in diapers until they mature enough to naturally learn toileting (to avoid all the unintended consequences of ‘training’) no matter what age. That includes children in elementary and even high school with needs for toilet assistance. Obviously, the need for thorough oversight to prevent abuse is key to this, but that needs to be in place, anyhow. The restrictions of ‘they must be toilet trained by x years’ is a serious barrier to care situations for most kids with support needs, whether developmental, neurodiverse, or delayed maturity.
Eliminating age segregation and keeping children together in ‘communities’ of children of various ages and abilities, to eliminate the ‘I’m not keeping up’ competition with classmates and daycare buddies. There are many good reasons to keep kids together as a cohort for the duration of their time in care, rather than shunting them from room to room, carer to carer ~ starting with a fundamental need to create a sense of belonging: trust and feeling known and understood by specific people (adults are not interchangeable to children, and neither are children.) Having the same kids with the same collection of adults for years enables them all to get to know each other very well, and eliminates the bumps and hurdles of new carers taking 6-8 months to get to know the kids and their unique care needs every year, while also removing the commonest source of unaddressed grief in childcare: loss of a trusted carer. This would also enable individual carers to really understand the types of support each child needs, rather than trying to throw the blanket ‘curriculum’ at them, and treating them all like zombies clinging to a rope.
1. “Belonging in childcare” for children with support needs means that children should be able to attend full time daycare under the care of their professionally trained caregivers in small groups.
Supported Children should not be turned away when their support person is away (or is away for just 15 minutes). ECE”s need to take a stand and INCLUDE and care for every child in their care.
2. Change in the current education system is required to better support inclusive childcare for children with support needs.
The philosophy of inclusion should be embedded in childcare. “Special Needs Certificate” should be made part of ECE certification and not just as an ‘add on’ . The Special Needs Curriculum should be tailored to meet the needs of neurodiverse students- a change in childcare ratio is required to qualitatively meet the needs of every. Neurodiverse children with additional support person should still be cared for by the well trained ECE, in the absence of the support person.
Removal of ECE A certification as a certificate for licensing, or increasing the ECE A curriculum to include Child Development and Best Practises. The current childcare qualifications are mediocre, resulting in mediocre care.
Review ECE and ECE A curriculum to include specifics on:
– Neurodivergence
-Attachment based care -Training (Circle of Security for caregivers)
-Language Development Strategies (Hanen Learning Language and Loving It
-Play and Development
-behaviour supports
Social Development
Socio Emotional Development
Cultural Safety and Diversity
Our family has firsthand experience of exclusion in preschool. SCD attempted to be the mediator but what can a family do when the facility operator is stuck in their traditional ways and does not accept SCD recommendations? The family has to put up with exclusion or risk losing their space and support if they leave.
Belonging will only happen when facility operators and childcare providers receive professional development on learning how to include, how to adapt, how to meet children where they are at. There is currently an extreme lack of education on anti-ableism and neurodiversity.
Belonging looks like:
– a child participating in all activities to whatever ability they can and with support
– a child learning social skills alongside peers by having many opportunities to play
– a child not told to stay home because no support is available that day
– accepting a child’s mobility needs and making an effort to make accommodations to allow that child to move around the classroom
– accepting and accommodating a child’s communication needs – a communication device is NOT a distraction to other students if you TEACH the other students what it’s for.
– presuming competence, especially in non-speaking students who understand more than they can tell you.
Funding is needed to provide professional development and support implementation.
Belonging in childcare would mean that each child has equitable access. I can’t tell you how many times I have been contacted and told that our support person cannot work, so we cannot bring our child – and then we don’t even get a refund so we are paying for care we can’t access and also having to miss work and/or take leave without pay, even though we have advocated tirelessly for access to education and childcare.
I think the funding for support needs to be tied to daycares inclusivity. It doesn’t make sense to me that SCD provides the money, but dyacres can still turn the child away and SCD’s hands are tied. I am tired of daycares no support = no access. They should be more willing to trial a child without support if the child’s SCD consultant and home team feels they are ready to try without. Especially when the current ‘issues’ are no different than any other neurotypical child, yet we have different rules.
I also don’t understand why I am ‘stuck’ in the same city, unless I want to lose the support. If support is provincial, then why do I have to go on a waitlist if I move? The funding should follow the child if you are moving within BC. Because of this, I cannot move closer to family who could actually support us because we can’t afford to lose support. And we can’t expect them to become the fulltime support.
I think the inclusive childcare needs to be imbedded more into the centres (or certain centres) to avoid trying daycares and then finding out they can’t support you and then you are left without care and having to start all over again. It should be more similar to the EA model somehow