Registered Disabilty Savings Plan
Early Childhood Education
Mothers of young children with disabilities and Manitoba’s early learning and childcare services
Trousse de politiques inclusives
Community Living Manitoba's Survey on Early Learning and Childcare
Inclusive Policies Resource Kit Feb 2008 For your convenience, here are key sections of the resource kit. Simply download and cut and paste into your own policies. Community Living Manitoba Inclusive Child Care Capacity Building 2 hour on site ECE inclusion workshops and 1/2 day creative facilitation for inclusion action planning (PATH) for your team. · Fear Factor! Tel: 786-1607 aclmb@mts.net www.aclmb.ca |
ECE Inclusion Mentors Receive Top Community Living Award
Congratulations to the very worthy recipients of this year’s President’s Award for Leadership in ECE, awarded on September 27, 2008 during Community Living Manitoba’s Annual General Meeting and Celebration Luncheon. Lynn Cooper, Monica Lytywn, Brigitte Insull, Anne Grewer and Wendy McKnight worked long and hard to provide support to 9 centres in our Phase 3, Inclusive Child Care Capacity Building Project. Together, these 5 women have helped to animate a culture of inclusion by reflective practitioners in early year programs in Manitoba. Our approach has been shown to have a significant impact on global quality and more specifically on inclusion in child care programs, and we know this means better outcomes for children, especially children with intellectual disabilities and other support needs. While mentors do receive modest compensation for their mentoring work, all these mentors went far beyond the mentor job descriptions. They devoted many unpaid hours to additional work with centres by phone and email, in traveling back and forth from Winnipeg, in mentoring potential mentors for a future phase, in providing advice and feedback to the project manager, and in meeting together as a team to share their respective strategies and to help us to shape this action project based on their ‘lessons learned’.
Mentors faced many weather challenges in their work with rural centres, and “neither snow nor rain nor sleet nor hail” kept them from their commitments, even when it meant over-nighting in local motels or on someone’s couch. They were leaders and visionaries, cheerleaders, workshop presenters, strategic planners, evaluators, coaches, furniture movers, and party planners. They found creative way to work with staff that was sometimes resistant to change, and diplomatic ways to offer constructive criticism. They helped staff to question their own assumptions and to celebrate each small improvement. They helped Community Living Manitoba demonstrate the validity of the approach to the child care community, our funders, and the Province of Manitoba. These wonderful women are wonderful role models for the entire child care community and are helping to position inclusive childcare as an integral part of the disability community’s agenda too. Congratulations!
Debra Mayer is early childhood consultant for Community Living Manitoba and project manager for the Inclusive Child Care Capacity Building Project, which has supported 20 centres to become more inclusive over the last four years.
Future for Preschoolers with Special Needs
If you have a question or concern about early childhood inclusion in Manitoba please contact Debra Mayer, Early childhood consultant, Community Living Manitoba c/o 204.786 -1607 or aclmb@mts.net
Links
Canadian Association for Community Living Children and Youth Resources
SpeciaLink-the National Centre for Child Care Inclusion
Manitoba Children’s Special Services
Red River College Studies in Special Needs Child Care
University of Winnipeg Bachelor of Arts in Developmental Studies (Stream C-Inclusion)