North American Ed - The ecology of childhood

2.3 Integrating environments for children and families

In 2007, the Early Years Study 2 (McCain et al.) review the scientific principles of early human development and how to put the research into practice. The report recommended the integration of early childhood and family programs. Chapter four, titled Chaos, describes the situation in Canada when the report was written. Read section 2.2, A Tangle of Roles and Responsibilities, and 2.3, Early Childhood Program Integration (McCain et al., 2007, pp. 112 – 114) and consider whether or not their concerns are still accurate, a number of years later.

The following narrated slide (McCain et al., 2007, p. 114) illustrates the tangle of roles and responsibilities among different levels of governments and the chaos of programs and services that confront families. How does it resonate with your experiences, in your community?

A comprehensive, integrated approach is a common characteristic of effective early interventions. For example, the Carolina Abecedarian Project discussed on the previous page, offers programming that combines health, early childhood education, non-parental care, home-visiting, and parenting supports to participants. Explore the Community of Change website to learn more about how such a program has been implemented in the Lord Selkirk Park community in Winnipeg Manitoba.

What parents do is therefore vitally important and can counteract other disadvantaging influences, particularly during pre-school. For this reason pre-school and school settings that do not include provision for parent support and education are missing an important element in raising achievement and enhancing social/behavioural development over the longer term” (Sylva et al., 2008, p. vii).

The Effective Provision of Pre-School Education (EPPE) studied the long term impact of participation in an early childhood education program. It was the first large European longitudinal study of a sample of young children’s development between the ages of three and fourteen years. The initial study, along with the numerous extensions and projects provided valuable insight into the importance not only of children’s home settings and of various early childhood settings independently, but also of links between home and early childhood education settings through parental involvement. Successfully and meaningfully integrating environments for children and families certainly must include the child’s home (Sylva et al., 2012). In fact, a case study analysis showed that high quality, effective early childhood settings encourage parents to be involved and the educators and parents communicate regularly about children’s progress (Taggart et al., 2015).

Sylva et al. (2012) outline several ways that people outside of the preschool setting, such as parents and other family and community members can help children do well throughout their school years:

• supporting and encouraging children and instilling in them a sense that they can be successful
• creating direct and indirect learning opportunities
• modelling for children that education is valued and how to achieve one’s goals

The researchers explain that disadvantaged children for whom success is less likely can manage to succeed against the odds and they explain that parents play a key role in this success.

Parents hold the key to many of children’s experiences, not just through their own interactions with the child and their involvement with school and learning but also for the learning opportunities they facilitate through their choices about children’s experiences in other micro-systems such as schools, extra-curricular activities, community involvement and contact with extended family” (Sylva et al., 2012, p. 130).

The following slides show some highlights from the EPPE studies.

…Researchers still need to focus, not only on children’s experiences when they are in nonparental care facilities, but also on other aspects of the broader ecology, including the intersection between parental and nonparental care” (Ahnert and Lamb, 2018, para. 3).

Sure Start in the United Kingdom is an example of a community early intervention program that joins together individual programs and services.  Learn about Sure Start, its evaluation, and how it too was influenced by earlier EPPE findings.

Caring and learning together

Historically, programs for young children and formal education have developed separately, with different systems of governance, funding streams, and training for staff. In the next reading, find out about the historical split between early education and child care programs and the advantages of integrated system of early childhood education and care systems.

Two Canadian initiatives, Toronto First Duty (TFD) and Better Beginnings Better Futures (BBBF) studied how to integrate programs and demonstrated benefits for children and families. TFD principle investigator Dr. Carl Corter at the Institute for Child Study at University of Toronto and BBBF principle investigator Dr. Ray Peters at Queen’s University describe what they learned from TFD and BBBF in the following article.

Better Beginnings Better Futures examined the impact of integrated services in eight economically disadvantaged communities in Ontario Canada. It was designed to reduce emotional and behavioural problems, promote optimal development and learning, strengthen families and build community capacity. Five of the communities focused on younger children from zero to four-years-old and three communities focused on older children, ages four to eight-years-old. In Ontario, children may begin public school at four years of age.

Listen now as Peters explains the BBBF program.

In the next clip, Peters describes how the research was designed to measure if children, families, programs and society benefited from BBBF.

In the next three clips, Peters describes the immediate and longer term findings for children in the BBBF communities compared to those in the matched communities. Some of the findings are surprising considering the importance of experiences in children’s earliest years.

Research continues to demonstrate the effectiveness of a full day of learning within a seamless and integrated environment. This environment includes before-and-after-school care and services for children and families under one central hub as envisioned by the late Charles Pascal in the 2009 report, “With our Best Future in Mind”.

Toronto First Duty (TFD) studied the integration of kindergarten, child care, and parenting support services into a single program for preschool children (0 to 6 years old) and their families in the greater Toronto area. Corter discusses the TFD main research findings.

The TFD project tries to eliminate the transitions many children and families experience as they juggle child care and school arrangements. Some call it a “seamless day”. Corter discusses this and the benefits for all involved.

Early childhood development initiatives and health care

Integrated programs, using the health care platform, are able to deliver services to the child and family as a whole.

In much of the world, it is particularly valuable to combine early learning, nutrition and health care services when providing programs to children from birth to three-years and their families. The late Dr. Clyde Hertzman, founding director of the Human Early Learning Program (HELP) at the University of British Columbia, describes how the health care system can integrate services and reach families and children.

Dr. Zulfiqar Bhutta, founding director at the Centre of Excellence in Women and Child Health, at the Aga Khan University, conducts research in Pakistani communities. He recommends joining up the silos and using health care as a delivery platform.

In the next two clips, paediatrician Dr. Neal Halfon, founding director of the University of California Los Angeles Center for Healthier Children, Families and Communities, discusses how the current array of early childhood and family programs might join up with each other.