Inclusive Child Care For All
Advocacy Project
Inclusive Child Care For All
The Inclusive Childcare for All project supports increased engagement in policy conversations from diverse communities and helps grow Canada's child care movement into a diverse and feminist network.
The Situation
Canada's care economy has been pushed to its limit during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Decades of underspending have left essential care sectors, including child care, in disarray. Caregivers are overwhelmed, and more people than ever require quality care. The repeated lockdowns had a profound impact on families, disproportionately burdening women with heavy unpaid household care responsibilities. Even before the pandemic, 42 per cent of working-age women globally reported being unable to do paid work because of their unpaid care and domestic work responsibilities—in stark contrast to only 6 per cent of men.
Investing in affordable, accessible, high-quality and inclusive child care is crucial for a just pandemic recovery.
In 2021, following persistent advocacy by the child care movement, the Federal Government committed $30 billion to build a Canada-Wide Early Learning and Child Care system (ELCC). Provinces and territories now have agreements to transfer federal funding, with goals set to reduce child care fees to $10 a day, increase the availability of public and not-for-profit child care, and grow a qualified ELCC workforce.
Large gaps in data analyzing the particular challenges faced by racialized women in accessing child care both before and during COVID, along with the intricacies of how policies impact individuals differently, create a high risk of the most marginalized women being overlooked in this new child care system.
The Inclusive Child Care for All project aims to bring the voices of underrepresented women and gender-diverse people to the forefront of policy discussions. By supporting the growth of the child care movement as a diverse and feminist network, the project will help advance policy solutions that address barriers to equitable access to early learning and care.
DETAILS
LOCATION
Canada
DURATION
2 years (2022-2024)
OUR PARTNERS
-Child Care Resource and Research Unit
-Child Care Now
OUR SUPPORTERS
We appreciate the support of Women and Gender Equality (WAGE) Canada and the generous Canadian public.
What are we doing?
Policy Ideas
We will build policy proposals to address barriers to inclusive access to licensed child care programs.
Intersectional Research
We will publish research that identifies and unpacks the barriers to equitable and inclusive access to child care.
Community Advocacy
We will support communities and child care champions to move the needle on the policy changes needed in early learning systems.
What have we achieved?
Community Advocacy
We support communities and child care champions to move the needle on the policy changes needed in early learning and child care. In May 2023, we organized the Inclusive Child Care Summit, which brought together over 90 parents, advocates, educators, and equity-seeking organizations. The summit promoted underrepresented women's engagement in advocacy networks. To learn more about the summit and its findings, you can read the Inclusive Child Care for All Summit Report. (FR version)
We have also launched the Where’s Child Care Campaign to mobilize and engage new advocates for early learning and child care.
Intersectional research
We publish research that unpacks the barriers to equitable and inclusive access to child care. The "Child Care for Whom?" paper identifies the challenges underrepresented groups of women experience in accessing early learning and child care, and proposes a framework for equitable access. It recommends a roadmap for building a universal child care system in Canada.
Policy ideas
We propose policies to address barriers to inclusive access to licensed child care programs and make them accessible to advocates. The Early Learning and Child Care for All Toolkit is available to support seasoned and new advocates in promoting policy solutions for inclusive access to child care.