By Zailey Ducharme
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Child Care Campaign
About
What is this campaign entailing? Throughout this project our goal is to focus on the systematic issues within childcare and social services, we are attempting to address underpaid wages, quality standards of care, government funding and support while attempting to make sure all children in need are being tended too. We plan on doing so by spreading awareness on this pressing issue with posters and social media platforms. To create an informational and interactive poster within densely populated areas like schools, neighbourhoods, buildings there will be a barcode to scan that brings you to our petition. From that point, participants can choose if they’d like to contribute by signing the petition and hopefully helping spreading the information further.
Goal with targeted audience
Child care systems are not discussed enough despite the necessity of it. With awareness from the posters and petition, we hope to catch the attention of those involved in the childcare systems and educate those who are involved or potentially will be. Therefore people can create proactive decisions from credible information. Using any platforms necessary is an approach to create uptiminal attention. With the intended audience being targeted which are teenagers/young adults as they are the ones who tend to speak up on pressing issues and may pursue a career within that field or have some form of correlation later on if they have not already. As well as the people already involved within the system and care for children, that includes teachers, social workers, daycare staff and parents themselves. They are all intertwined with children's needs and its necessary that they equipped with information to take the right approach when needed.
Advantages
here are some key advantages I have within making this campaign that will provide as useful resources for a successful project, and further equips me with first hand information. By having a psychologist who works with children she witnesses the interference of child care herself, providing a safe place for children who typically suffer with mental health issues and have been involved with social services. I also nanny for a mother who works in the system herself and can provide credible information on how it works. With the professional insight I can gain, I'm able to listen to personal experiences as well since I have family that have been fostered and were within the system.
Disadvantages
A disadvantage I may face is that I have not had many personal experiences within the system and cannot speak first hand, only from my resources and research. This is also my first project attempting to reach a larger audience and I do not have a large following on social media. Though I hope that even with less followers there's a chance they may be more interactive in comparison. With that I also do not have many connections on where I would be able to place these posters that would help reach my targeted audience, still I'm excited to navigate advertising for this. With the help of an advisor I was suggested to use my previous connections to see if they have any ideas on where to promote the poster, while as using the populated hallways of my highschool to place them.
Comaring Canada
Canada ranks 7th place in child care
When looking at the top countries with the best childcare, we gratefully make the list, but is that enough? With child care services being so detrimental to children's development and serves as the foundation of sustainability and a efficient economy, there's still an immense amount of improvement needed to be done. We place 7th with nordic countries taking the lead. Such as sweden, dennmark, norway and finland. Why is this? Though Canada is improving there are differences in our countries systems that have an impact.
Goverment investment
Canada has invested a large sum of money into childcare and cut the costs significantly as high prices creates a drag on the economy steering parents away from the workforce. Though not all provinces and regions have equally participated. Noric countries such as denmark and sweden invest a decent chunk of their GDP at 1.3% while canada spends approximetely 0.3% of theirs.
Affordability
That leads us into the affordability, even with the improvements when put in comparison our costs are substantially larger in certain regions, particularly within the highly populated urban areas like toronto, which costs around CAD 1,774 per month of childcare for a toddler. While in Denmark parents pay only 25% of childcare costs with the government paying the rest.
Education
The education of staff required differs within each region and role though often within Canada there are less requirements compared to other countries. For example, with daycares, in Nordic countries they typically always require a bachelor's degree, while here we don’t. This can reflect in their performance, further education helps better equip staff for performance.
Quality
Numerous studies have suggested that children’s interactions with educators (such as, staff-to-child interaction) are a critical factor leading to better academic and social outcomes
Staff Shortage
Even with less education required we still have a drastic shortage with staff. This occurs in a lot of the sectors surrounding childcare which off balances the ratio of staff to children. Meaning staff are required to tend to more children which may impact their ability to connect with each individual.
Standards
Each region has different standards and regulations which causes inconsistency, as this often leads into confusion and uncertainty, rising concerns within parents as some may have more stringent standards then others, affecting overall quality.
Reachability
Availlability
Due to low wages and less staff, less locations are able to open and the demand for quality care exceeds the supply. A 2020 Canadian surveyed that 36% of parents struggle finding apropriate childcare for their kids. Making parents having to sign up for waitlists that take forever to get into. Often, you’ll find parents waiting several to 12 months before a spot opens up.
Differances
There are serious barriers within children getting the adequate care they need especially when not all children have the same tendices. Neurodivergent children often need extra support that many facilities are just not able to provide. This csn be due to a variety of factors including less staff that dont have the extra time or less education that affets their abilitys and knowledge on how to tend to special children. Children with disabilitys bare twice as unlikey to have unment childcare needs when compared to their neurotypical peers.
Barriers
Sometimes when it comes to getting quality childcare, lack of information can be the sole purpose alone of not receiving it. Though there are recourses most people have acsess to alot of parents are just not aware of their options . This becomes a more extreme barrier when taking a look at first time parents, people new to Canada or cultural/language differences. These people may not be sure where to look or how to receive the help. If the government is able to provide finacial aid I believe facilities and the goverment should put more effort into properly providing education on these type of oppurtunities.
Resource
IRIS | Page 1: Early Childhood Environments. (n.d.). https://iris.peabody.vanderbilt.edu/module/env/cresource/q1/p01/
This website is expressing the importance of what stable enviroments to children could bring. Childcare is supposed to be able to provide that, so the children can thrive. “Safe, responsive, and nurturing environments are an important part of supporting the learning and development of infants, toddlers, and preschoolers.” Which states information that further represents my cause.
“Unfortunately, many practitioners are unsure how to create environments that support their children’s learning across different age groups and developmental domains,” This can be reffererd back to the page focused on quality, without proper education, care or enough staff, situations can occur where practitioners are not properly equiped.
This information was gathered from a website that specifically studies these areas of concepts created by a centre that offers a variety of recourses and services.
Resource
The information gathered was from an article by Palo Alto University written by Jasmine Monfared who writes a variety of articles focusing on the cognitive brain.
Childhood Trauma and its effect on Adulthood - CONCEPT Professional Training. (n.d.). https://concept.paloaltou.edu/resources/business-of-practice-blog/childhood-trauma
“A zip code showcases an individual’s ability to prevent long-term health disparities because of factors such as socioeconomic status, location-specific schools, and medical services.” This information received reinforces evidence on how detrimental a childhoods enviroment is. How the necessity of a healthy environment and any adverse experience can alter their brain in the long term. This includes the childcare services they’ll be recieving and highlights the importance of quality.
“Younger children in early childhood are less able to understand and process traumatic events, so they react in nonverbal ways like emotional outbursts, poor verbal skills, and memory problems. Older children exhibit behaviors like physical aches, lack of trust, or learning disabilities.” These are important variables discussing how children express adversity. Having knowledgable adults providing services should be able to properly understand and tend to children with these experiences. This further fuels the movivation of educations providers accuretly.
Resource
This information was gathered from a foundation called Healthy people 2030, written and revised by a group of people within the team but not specified which individuals.
Poverty - Healthy People 2030 | Health.gov. (n.d.). https://health.gov/healthypeople/priority-areas/social-determinants-health/literature-summaries/poverty
“in the 2021 definition, people are considered impoverished if their individual income is below $12,880 or their household income is below $26,500 for a family of 4.2 After 5 consecutive years in decline, the poverty rate increased to 11.4 percent in 2020, or a total of 37.2 million people.” As stated before in toronto the average cost is CAD 1,774 per month of childcare for a toddler. Meaning many children even with subsidy are still not able to afford the costs of adequate care. Affordability is a big issue as childcare should genuinely be a right.
“Some communities, such as certain racial and ethnic groups, people living in rural areas, and people with disabilities, have a higher risk of poverty for a myriad of factors that extend beyond individual control. For example, institutional racism and discrimination contribute to unequal social and economic opportunities. Residents of impoverished communities often have reduced access to resources that are needed to support a healthy quality of life.” This quote expresses the disadvantages that certain types of groups already face, some I have already touched. Though these people are often in more need of support, they are less likely to receive it.This stresses the importance of reachability and making sure all groups of people have access to childcare.
Resource
psychologist
This information was gathered from my psychologist from Manitoba Adolescent Treatment Centre who specializes in helping children, occured 2 days ago when I asked a few questions on her perspective.
During our meeting I asked how she felt about the childcare system currently and she expressed gratitude towards the work that went into more affordable oppurtunities while also stating that its possible for progression within daycares specifically. Within her work alot of the children are covered and do not need to pay. Therefore affordability doesn’t stand as an issue in her line of work. Still she showed awareness on how fundemntal it is that all children have acsess to childcare which gives us perspective from a professional standpoint.
I then asked her about CFS and aimed the question towards social work. She believes the idea of a functional operated system is ideal but that just isnt always the case, dealing with children in the system she sees how drastic of an impact instability has, and how awful of an expirence it can be for a kid when put into the wrong foster home. She believes that with knowledge on how impressionable the childs mind is, that more measures should be took when creating an optimal structure. While remaining confidential she still shared concerns on the current systematic nature. We are all grateful that theres somewhere for displaced children to go but there’s alot to take into consideration when creating an opperating system that does not danger the child’s development. This falls into quality and education category. This is not something to take lightly and everyone involved in a child’s future needs to be equipped to do so.
Scalability
We hope to reach a broad audience through our posters and petitions. With an estimate of reaching possibly 100 people and only growing from then on. Through both digital and physical platforms mostly leveraging social media. This reach is attainable given the broad interest in childcare issues and the general importance of it. By having an engaging and attention grabbing poster, blog and petition we expect positive feedback.
Feasibility
The goal within this project is to help others gain awerness across specific demographics, that may play a role in this category either now or later on. Therefore, people are able to create proactive decisions from credible information when coming across adversity in the department. By creating impactful posters and having people make the decision to sign a petition our realistic goal is to mobilize community support, pressure policymakers to make better standards, and ensure all children receive the quality care they deserve by educating them on the recourses available.
Sustainability
Our campaign can continue and be replicated in the future due to its structured approach and accessible resources. This topic has always been spoken on and has attraction across many demographics. By having created an comprehensive and efficient campaign with a step by step plan, we pave the way for others to also take inititive. This ensures sustained efforts for advocating and improving the system.
Key Strength
A key strength of our campaign is its sustainability and replicability. Within this blog it holds step by step responses for any concerns someone may hold when attempting to recreate it. Creating almost a form of guidelines for future participants to follow. Which helps power others to take a more formative initiative.
Key
Weakness
A key weakness that may occur and is a common occurrence within movements is potential difficulty in maintaining momentum and engagement over time. Without continuous direct participation and active promotion, interest may decline, and the campaign might struggle to reach new audiences.
Key aspects of campaign
Taking Action!
Our action plan involves two key actions to address systemic issues in childcare and social services. First, we will create an impactful poster campaign highlighting the critical problems of underpaid wages, quality standards of care, and insufficient government funding. Through our “insight” section that gives the spotlight to information/statics that reinforces the initial message of the “importance”. Within the first section on importance I adress the issues within the system and write the negative effects of them to help resonate with the audience. With this method I expect to grab the readers attention and encourage them to make the proactive decision to read further and sign the petition! Which leads us into our other key action of launching a petition. With this petition it will hopefully encourage others to heavily consider their actions within the system and encourage those who need help to reach out. While also increasing pressure within policy makers to take a deeper look within the current standards in place.
Major 4 Steps
Spreading awerness
After attaining credible information and designing an insightful poster, the next step was to spread the message. I advocated this through media platforms like instagram, facebook, reddit and speaking about personally with others.
Follow
up
after sustaining the intended attention within this campaign we hope to have spread awarenes that has encouraged others to reach out when facing difficulties in this area; with a replicateable campaign others can recreate. Continuing progress in this area.
Research & design
With thorough research within childcare, it’s issues and it’s affect on child development I accumulated data to help design an informative and impactful poster. Being visually appealing and include compelling statistics and messages to attract attention and convey the urgency of the issues.
Petition
Launch
Creating a petition alongside the posters gives the audience the opportunity to engage and shows participation. By adding a QR code on the poster and providing a link on posts, it makes it very accessible and simple to sign.