The Moving Child Care Forward project, funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada’s Connections program, is designed to broaden and deepen debate and understanding of early childhood education and child care (ECEC) policy issues. The project’s goals: knowledge mobilization to promote research, inform public and policy dialogue and to develop effective responses to complex policy issues to better serve young children and their families.

The Moving Childcare Forward Project is a joint initiative of the Childcare Resource and Research Unit, Centre for Work, Families and Well-Being at the University of Guelph, and Susan Prentice, Department of Sociology at the University of Manitoba.

The project team will draw on the best available, most recent Canadian ECEC information and data to develop timely and accessible policy briefs that offer interpretation, analysis and synthesis of data drawn from several studies. It will make the information accessible to multiple audiences to fill knowledge gaps and to facilitate productive dialogue among stakeholders and citizens. Each brief is organized around three questions:

What?
What does the information and data tell us?
So what?
What does this mean for families, children, society, the economy, the ECEC field?
Now what?
As a result of the evidence, what now? What actions should be pursued to address challenges, improve the quality of services?

Each brief may be followed by expert commentaries. The policy briefs, commentaries and a one-day research conference will stimulate the formation of a multi-disciplinary, multi-sectoral ECEC research network. We seek to strengthen and consolidate interest in ECEC policy research across disciplines and sectors. By sparking the formation of an ECEC research and communication network, we will integrate academics, civil society intermediaries, professionals and policy-makers into a research network.

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The Moving Child Care Forward project, funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada’s Connections program, is designed to broaden and deepen debate and understanding of early childhood education and child care (ECEC) policy issues. The project’s goals: knowledge mobilization to promote research, inform public and policy dialogue and to develop effective responses to complex policy issues to better serve young children and their families.