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The Premier of New Brunswick provided a progress report on its three-year action plan, Putting Children First: Positioning Early Childhood for the Future, unveiled last spring. Included in the plan are integrating early childhood and education services, realigning the boundaries for local early childhood services with school district boundaries and extending the definition of early childhood up to children 8-years-old.

The government announced additional professional development funding for staff and board members of child care centres. "Grants are provided to reimburse costs associated with attending professional development events such as workshops or conferences held in the province."

The government announces a commitment to fund 20 new preschool and 45 new school-age child care spaces.

Posted on Longwoods.com.

Article by Kerry McCuaig: "The needs of modern families have changed; the services designed to support them have not. Children's programming in Canada is divided into three distinct streams – education, child care, and family and intervention supports.... The result is service silos. Children and families don't experience their lives in silos; their needs can't be dissected and addressed in isolation."

Report by Kerry McCuaig, Jane Bertrand and Stuart Shanker: "Over the last few decades the science of early development has witnessed explosive growth. New technologies confirm that infancy and early childhood are the first and most critical phases of human development. A child’s earliest experiences shape the structure of genes and the architecture of the developing brain. At the same time families have changed, becoming more diverse and are raising young children in circumstances that are significantly more complex, and for many, more stressful."

Discussion with Michal Perlman, Jenny Jenkins, Michael Baker, Kerry McCuaig,and Erica Okezie Phillips.

Early years programs are undergoing significant changes in Ontario. Full day kindergarten will be available to all 4-and 5-year-old children by 2014. School boards are required to secure extended day options where there is sufficient demand. Child care programs are repurposing to serve younger aged children and their families.

The Department of Education has released a discussion paper Modernizing Child Care in Ontario, "to begin a conversation that will help move Ontario towards a high quality, accessible and co-ordinated early learning and care system for all children."

Presented by Christine Avery Nunez, Atkinson Charitable Foundation, Kerry McCuaig, Atkinson Foundation Fellow in Early Childhood Education, OISE, UofT, Toronto Education Consultation, June 14, 2012.

The recent release of Early Years Study 3 reinforces the bridge between science, policy and practice. The earliest years of development is a sophisticated interplay between genetics and environment, a convergence that brings together parents, educators, researchers and policy leaders.

The 9th Summer Institute on Early Child Development will examine evidence-based approaches to developing a comprehensive children’s and family support system starting in utero. It brings together experts, practitioners and key stakeholders who are committed to innovative collaboration to ensure the best possible outcomes for young children and their families.

This year, we are pleased to recognize the contributions of Jane Bertrand, a leader amongst leaders and an accomplished early childhood educator and advocate.

The provincial government has released a three-year, $38-million action plan, Putting Children First, that will integrate early childhood services into the school system.

The Manitoba Centre for Health Policy has released a new report on the Early Development Instrument results in Manitoba. The report focusses on: socioeconomic adversity and children’s vulnerability at age five; biological vulnerability at birth and children’s vulnerability at age five; and children’s vulnerability at age five in three at–risk subgroups of children.