October 2012

Merging education with child care and family supports is a proven formula for better outcomes for children and less stress for parents. Yet across Canada services, particularly for young children, are a disorganized patchwork. "This disadvantages families and taxpayers," says the Honourable Margaret McCain, who is here to co-host a workshop bringing Canadian and international experts together with government officials and front line children's service providers.

With the former Lieutenant Governor and philanthropist is June McLoughlin, Director of Family and Children's Services, Victoria, Australia and Lyse Brunet, Executive Director d'Avenir d'enfants, an initiative with the Quebec ...

Toronto, October 23, 2012

Excerpt: "Less than a month after the inaugural conference for the Fraser Mustard Institute for Human Development, we are together again under the same theme – how research, policy and practice – across disciplines – inform one another.

Behind the IHD, and its prototype the Atkinson Centre, is an understanding that human development is complex – it doesn’t belong to any one discipline. And just as we have spent the last two days advising policy makers to breakdown the silos that hinder the delivery of early education – academics need to heed that same advice and build cross sector understanding ...

October 16, 2012, Montreal, Quebec

Excerpt: "We are the Early Child Development Funders Working Group – it’s a mouthful and we could have devised a more pithy handle but we are not about branding; we are about a goal – publicly funded early education for every child from the age of two. This objective underpins our respective equity and social justice agendas. It is progressive, ambitious and achievable.

Ours is a collaboration of eight family foundations – some old and some new; some large, some small, stretching from Alberta to Newfoundland. We first met in Toronto in an exploratory meeting to see ...