By Leisha Toory, General Member
Oxfam Canada’s “Inclusive Child Care For All Summit” goal is to strengthen the childcare movement and its intersectional analysis of the childcare challenges faced by women who have been historically excluded from the formal childcare sector.
The summit aims to create space for women from underrepresented groups, including Black, racialized, immigrant and refugee communities, gender-diverse and sex worker parents, as well as parents with disabilities and parents with children with disabilities, to bring forth their experiences in spaces that have so often overlooked their experiences.
“The Past, Present, and Future of Licensed Child Care” presentations opened insightful discussions on the Inuit Nunangat and the Inuit early learning and childcare landscape grounded in Inuktitut and Inuit culture with program design and planning that are inclusive of collaboration amongst Inuit and government stakeholders and highlighted how by reviewing the social determinants of Inuit health, they were able to provide a framework that accurately and efficiently caters to the needs of the community.
Guest speakers asserted that for high quality equitable inclusive childcare, we need a low minimum parent fee set by the government, equitable access to child care as well as a qualified, properly compensated, and supported childcare workforce. To achieve a publicly funded, managed, and planned supply of comprehensive not-for-profit/public services for all children, we need democratic engagement and accountability, research and data evaluation, and Indigenous Early Learning and Child Care Framework consultation and collaboration. Emphasis was placed on not confusing tokenism with inclusion. While inclusion is a continuous process that must last, tokenism is a forced form of diversity that creates a superficial appearance of equality without truly achieving it.
The summit delved deeper into the “Barriers to Access for Marginalized Communities”: experiences of black, racialized, Indigenous, people with disabilities need to be centered in conversations on equitable child care access. Child care is a scarce resource, meaning that newcomers and immigrants fighting for child care and fighting against racism and ableism experience more difficulties. In conclusion, improved childcare policies are tied to improved immigration policies.
The “Policy Options for addressing Inequity in Child Care” portion of the summit expressed a systemic look at child care inclusivity/access, expanding on the three levels namely policy level, provision level, and parental level. A policy level comprises regulation of fees by income and not vouchers, central monitoring of structural quality, integration of education/care, and non-discriminatory population-based entitlement within a universal system. A provision level includes democratic decision-making, a diverse workforce, interagency cooperation providing influential community and family support, analysis of priority enrolment criteria, and access obstacles. A parental level combines parental involvement and accessible and meaningful information.
In conclusion, throughout the summit, I was able to acquire deep knowledge of childcare needs and gaps, explore government policy solutions to address these needs and gaps and identify ways to ensure that childcare advocacy groups and networks address them in advocacy initiatives and campaigns.