February 2010 - Our Voice in Action

OPHA responds to “With Our Best Future in Mind” by Dr. Charles Pascal

by Sue Makin, Healthy Families Director, Toronto Public Health, and OPHA Child and Youth Health Workgroup Chair

In June 2009, Dr Charles Pascal, Special Advisor on Early Learning, presented his report, With Our Best Future In Mind: Implementing Early Learning in Ontario, to Premier Dalton McGuinty.

The report identified that in order for Ontario’s economy and society to be successful in the future, “we need our children to be creative thinkers and problem solvers. We need them to be compassionate, engaged, and literate citizens who will thrive in a diverse society”.

Unfortunately, today more than one in four children in Ontario enter Grade 1 significantly behind their peers. Literature clearly demonstrates that failure in school, child poverty, and youth violence are enemies of prosperity. Dr Pascal believes that we can do better. But, it will require a significant investment in and a transformation of the current patchwork of early learning, care, and family supports in order to achieve improved outcomes for our children.

In his report, Dr Pascal presented the Premier with a bold vision for Early Learning and Care in Ontario. This vision is based on a solid understanding of early years growth and development and intensive investigation into best practices. It extends well beyond the confines of full day learning for 4 and 5 year olds. It begins prenatally and extends into the middle years. It proposes a comprehensive approach to full day learning, seamless child care, a common early learning curriculum, stream-lined and improved access to a broad range of services for prenatal women, young children and families, and the establishment of public policies that better support families. We are pleased to report that public health services have been identified as an integral part of this Early Learning and Care Plan.

OPHA has expressed its support for Dr. Pascal’s vision. To date, the Premier has formally endorsed the recommendations that relate specifically to full day learning and child care and has established an Early Years Division within the Ministry of Education to lead planning and implementation of these recommendations. OPHA, along with many of our early years service partners, has now called on the Province to endorse the full vision, which includes the establishment of Best Start Child and Family Centres.

In addition, and in follow-up to our recent participation in a joint OMSSA/alPHa forum on the municipal service and public health recommendations in this report, OPHA has identified a number of issues that the Province needs to pay attention to as it plans and implements its Early Learning and Care Plan.

The establishment of an Early Years Division within the Ministry of Education will provide the leadership and coordination of the planning, implementing and evaluating of that will be essential to success. Family health public health services currently work within a framework of multiple local and provincial funders and accountability and this plan is not likely to change this substantially. Therefore, it is essential that the Province establish comprehensive inter-ministry collaboration and coordination.

Implementing the recommendations in this report will require extensive planning at both the provincial and local level. The report calls on the province to develop an Early Years Policy Framework and an Early Years Index. Local Consolidated Municipal Service Managers will take the lead for the development of community-based Early Years Service Plans. Public health already has a long history of working in partnership with community early years service providers to plan and deliver our programs, including being a core partner at Best Start Network tables.

OPHA has identified that the Province must include public health as an integral part of the planning process right from the beginning. This will ensure that the Province and local communities are aware of and addresses impacts of the plans on existing public health mandate, standards, protocols, and funding sources. It will also ensure that we integrate public health services into the new plans in a manner that is effective and maintain the quality and integrity of existing public health programs.

Finally, the report recommends a consolidation of early years funding into a single budget/single employer model and assumes that “funding for Best Start Child and Family Centres and the services provided through them will be found in the re-engineering and consolidation of existing programs and resources”. However, for the past several years, public health has identified growing concerns with our funding levels, particularly for the Healthy Babies Healthy Children program.

OPHA believes that it is unlikely that the proposed funding plan will address the funding pressures currently experienced by this program. Therefore, we have called on the Province to fund public health services, including the Healthy Babies Healthy Children program, at a level that is adequate to meet community need and is sustainable.

The province’s Early Learning and Care Plan presents a bold vision for transformation of the early learning, child care and family supports. It is the right thing for Ontario’s young children and families and OPHA supports this vision. It is consistent with the goals of the Reproductive Health and Child Health Standards of the Ontario Public Health Standards and offers public health a new means of reaching out to pregnant women, young children and families.

We look forward to the opportunity to work with our provincial and municipal funders, other children service sectors and our community partners to plan, implement and monitor the implementation of the province’s new Early Learning and Care Plan in order to realize a system of early learning, child care and family supports that will have a significant impact on positive parenting and the healthy growth and development of Ontario’s children.

View OPHA’s covering letter and submission to Premier McGuinty under Our Voice in Action, Government Consultations, List of Submissions.

 

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