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UEY Program
Definition:
Understanding the
Early Years (UEY) is a federal government initiative that helps give Canadian children the best possible start in life by
providing commmunities with information on the "readiness to learn" of their
children, the family and community factors that influence children's
development; and, the availability of local resources to support young
children and their families. This local
information empowers communities to make responsive program, policy
and investment decisions to give their young children the best
possible start in the early years.
Within each UEY site, both Social Development
Canada and the local community are key participants (see Figure 1).
Figure 1: UEY Key Players
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Milton has been chosen as a UEY
site for Halton
The UEY initiative
does not provide direct service to children or families but rather
is premised on the notion of building research capacity in
communities to make evidence-based planning decisions.
As part of the UEY
proposal, you must select a "place" community for your UEY site. The
Our Kids Joint Steering Committee which has representation from both
the Early Years and School Years committees agreed that Milton would
be selected as our UEY site. Milton was selected based on the
identified need in the Report Card and on the fact that it
represents a unique case study on the impact of rapid urban sprawl
on the well-being of children. For example, in Milton the number of
senior kindergarten children in 2003 was about 328; at the time of
our submission for funding to UEY, the 2005 kindergarten
registration had already risen to over 500 children.
The UEY initiative
is all about providing multi-source, high-quality data to
communities on the "readiness to learn" of their young children, and
the family and community factors that influence children's
development.
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Social Development
Canada (SDC) plays a number of key roles:
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Provides funding for and manages
independently collected data on children's "readiness to learn" as
well as family and community factors that influence "readiness to
learn".
-
Provides funding for and manages
the independent analysis of the data and the production of a
report on children's "readiness to learn" for the community's use.
-
Provides funding to communities
to support a range of activities including: the collection
of local-level research to augment the children's "readiness to
learn" data cited above; the writing of a community mapping report
and a community action plan; the hiring and paying of a full-time
UEY coordinator; and, a range of community related work such as
knowledge dissemination.
-
Provides a range of supports to
UEY sites including: orientation and training; coordination
of research activities; and, facilitation of information sharing
and a UEY knowledge network.
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A UEY Community
includes three key players with important roles:
-
The "sponsor" is a non-profit
organization in the community with a mandate focused on social
development issues. The sponsor enters into the Contribution
Agreement with Social Development Canada and is responsible for
oversight of the local UEY project and for adhering to the
Agreement, including financial and activity reporting to Social
Development Canada. In Halton's situation, Halton Child and Youth
Services has agreed to be the sponsor for our UEY project based in
Milton.
-
The "coordinator", hired by the
sponsor, is the manager of the local UEY project. The coordinator
works closely with the sponsor and the community to coordinate
activities for the "readiness to learn" research as well as the
local research, including working with the schools / school boards
to secure access to the children for data collection; managing the
local-level data collection; and, coordinating and managing the
production of the community reports such as a community mapping
report and a community action plan.
-
The coordinator also works with
the UEY community coalition to help ensure that they understand
the research data and findings.
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The "community coalition" is a
group of interested and committed local individuals representing
the various people and agencies involved in children's "readiness
to learn" (e.g., parents, teachers, school boards, social
services, health services, volunteer organizations, etc.). The
coalition works with the UEY project coordinator to understand UEY
data and develop evidence-based community action plans to address
and improve programs and services for children and their families.
In Halton's situation, the community coalition function is being
handled by Our Kids Network.
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Data Collection:
Data will be collected in each
community through the following research methods:
-
teacher assessments of children
-
direct assessments of children
-
parent interviews
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surveys of local resources and
services
These multi-source data collection
exercises provide the means for gathering high quality information
on the five domains of "readiness to learn", and the family and
community factors that influence child outcomes:
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children's "readiness to learn"
is assessed by the teachers' assessments of their students through
a questionnaire about each student, and through direct assessments
of children's knowledge and skills by independent researchers.
-
family background and family
process information is collected through parent interviews on
factors such as socio-economic status, parenting style and
residential stability, and is conducted by independent
researchers.
-
local data collection, conducted
in the community through surveys and/or observational research, is
collected on available resources (such as parks or libraries),
programs and services (such as health services for expectant
mothers, or programs for children), as well as related information
such as the safety of neighbourhood.
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