Canadian Council on Learning | Conseil Canadien sur l'Apprentissage

This project brought together 200 delegates and presenters from all regions of Canada at the University of Winnipeg, August 20-23, 2008, to exchange knowledge and inspire one another about the many Canadian successes in the fields of early childhood inclusion and intervention. The program included three keynote presentations, a pre-conference day for touring 12 local exemplary programs, and 45 workshops. Most of the 69 presenters shared executive summaries and PowerPoint presentations for publication in a Sourcebook, which is available online at www.specialinkcanada.org. The event marked the first time in 16 years that researchers, parents, early childhood educators and interventionists, policy makers, researchers and academics came together to discuss child care inclusion issues.

This project was designed to build a learning community of child development researchers and practitioners for reviewing research and informing the Centre's strategies and interventions. Three seminars provided participants the opportunity to review research regarding parents' role as primary educators for their children and essential partners in the community, to examine current issues in child development and living conditions, and to learn about winning conditions and strategies for effective partnerships. The project resulted in the following accomplishments: three reports summarizing the discussions at each of the seminars (available online at www.centre123go.ca); a draft version of a guide to producing community profiles in cooperation with parents (joint project with Québec Enfants); an approach for the Centre 1, 2, 3 GO! to work with its community partners; and a book project to document the knowledge generated throughout the 15 years of the 1, 2, 3 GO! project. Most importantly, the project successfully fostered new partnerships, notably as part of the Action régionale concertée autour du développement des enfants de Montréal.

This project engaged a practitioner in residence to summarize current research and to encourage collaboration between early learning practitioners and researchers. The production of a draft support document for infant/toddler learning and care will be expanded, published and distributed to English speaking childcare educators under the auspices of the New Brunswick Curriculum for Early Learning and Child Care Project. The major achievement of the project was the relationship-building that occurred between researchers and practitioners. This has fostered a commitment to making practice/theory/research connections in infant/toddler learning and care more publicly visible.

For this project, the Association québécoise des centres de la petite enfance (AQCPE) mobilized a network of researchers and practitioners as well as partner organizations in early childhood education to focus on professional practices for quality service in daycare educational centres. It developed innovative ways of managing and transferring knowledge through enhanced linkages between researchers and practitioners. Key ingredients for best practices were identified and these practices were inventoried and formalized. Through this work, the AQCPE emerged as a leader in facilitating partnerships for research, education and training. Key deliverables included conferences and workshops, development of a best practices inventory, tools for identifying and disseminating best practices, and establishment of a multi-sectoral group committed to achieving quality childcare services, and the initial phase and interim report of the Odyssée Project evaluation that is designed to assess the project’s effectiveness as a model for knowledge exchange.