Is Best Start currently happening?
How will my family benefit from Best Start?
How is Best Start different from the Ontario Early Years Centres?
What exactly is the Early Learning Program and how will my child participating affect my child care costs?
Can my child who is currently in Kindergarten attend the free Early Learning Program on days when he/she is not in Kindergarten?
The high cost of child care has prevented me from returning to work? With the introduction of Best Start, will child care costs go down?
If I currently access child care in a centre that is not located in the identified hub, should I cancel my provider and register at the hub in order to be eligible for hub services?
What services will Best Start offer new parents and their children?
Who is planning Best Start for my community?
What communities are affected by Best Start?
Question: Is Best Start currently happening?
Answer: Immediately after the announcement that our communities had been selected as the Best Start Rural Demonstration site for the province (March 11, 2005), agencies providing services to families and children started working together to develop a Best Start plan. Collectively we have developed a preliminary plan for how Best Start services could best be delivered in the communities of Chatham-Kent and Lambton. We submitted our draft plan to the Ministry of Children and Youth Services for consideration in mid June. Agencies and school boards will continue to work together throughout the summer to enhance and fine-tune our plan and will resubmit a more comprehensive Best Start Plan to the Ministry in October 2005.
Although Best Start Early Learning and Care Hubs cannot open until Ministry approval and funding is received, many of the components of Best Start are already being delivered in various locations across our communities. For example, many elementary schools that provide kindergarten have already partnered with child care operators to ensure parents have on site access to before and after school child care. In addition, many Ontario Early Years services are also co-located at school sites and provide services collaboratively with Public Health and other service providers. These practices will help us to quickly implement other components of Best Start when Ministry approval is received.
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Question: How will my family benefit from Best Start?
Answer: Families with children 0 to six years of age will benefit from Best Start in a variety of ways. Best Start is a new provincial early learning and child care initiative designed to enhance early intervention and provide enhanced access to early learning opportunities and licensed child care for Ontario families. The primary goal of Best Start is to help children to be ready to learn when they start Grade 1.
Best Start services will be offered at conveniently located Early Learning and Care Hubs across Chatham-Kent and Lambton. The majority of these hubs will be located in elementary schools. For a complete list of services and programs and recommended locations of hubs, return to the main page of the Best Start site.
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Question: How is Best Start different from the Ontario Early Years Centres?
Answer: Ontario Early Years Centres provide a range of core services in sites across our communities and will continue to do so with the introduction of Best Start. OEYC services generally include, but are not limited to: early learning activities, parent support and education seminars, pre and post-natal resources and information, information about and links to other early years providers, outreach services (lending libraries), etc. Best Start will partner with Ontario Early Years Centres to ensure the continued availability of their services and to discuss the integration of the services at Early Learning and Care Hubs.
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Question: What exactly is the Early Learning Program and how will my child participating affect my child care costs?
Answer: The Early Learning Program is a ‘pre-school’ learning program that is currently under development by early learning experts. It is intended for children ages 2.5 to 4 years of age who are not yet eligible to enter the school system (JK/SK). The early learning program will be offered in licensed child care programs (centre based and in-home settings) for 2.5 to 3 hours each day, 5 days a week (or equivalent) at no cost to families. For families with an age appropriate child who currently have a child in licensed care, participation in this program will reduce their costs of care by up to 2.5 to 3 hours daily. For families who could not previously afford care, this program will provide opportunities not previously available due to prohibitive costs.
It is also intended that parents with children in the early learning program have access to affordable licensed child care for the hours outside the preschool program (i.e. additional half day, before and after pre-school), 5 days per week (or equivalent) year round.
Eligibility for assistance to cover the costs of additional licensed child care that occurs before and after the early learning program will be needs tested. The Ministry is currently revising it’s approach to determining fee subsidy eligibility by developing a sliding scale income test approach that is intended to increase the number of families eligible for assistance with the cost of care.
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Question: Can my child who is currently in Kindergarten attend the free Early Learning Program on days when he/she is not in Kindergarten?
Answer: The no cost Early Learning Program is for children ages 2.5 to 4 years who are not yet eligible to attend Kindergarten. Children who are age eligible for either JK or SK are not eligible for the free program. However, you may wish to register your child to attend a licensed child care program on alternate days and complete an application for fee subsidy to determine if you are eligible for assistance with the cost of child care.
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Question: The high cost of child care has prevented me from returning to work? With the introduction of Best Start, will child care costs go down?
Answer: In the fall of 2004, the Ministry of Children and Youth Services made some changes to the process for determining eligibility for fee subsidy (assistance with the cost of child care) by eliminating restrictions on child care subsidies for parents with RRSPs and RESPs. This change was made to make more families eligible for subsidies.
In addition, the Ministry is currently revising it’s approach to determining fee subsidy eligibility by developing a sliding scale income test approach that will replace the current needs test. This new model for distributing subsidies, based on income instead of means, should also make more Ontario families eligible for help.
We have formally requested that the communities of Chatham-Kent and Lambton be approved to pilot test the new sliding scale income test when it becomes available. If approved, we are optimistic that pilot testing of the new sliding scale could take place in the fall or winter of 2005/2006.
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Question: If I currently access child care in a centre that is not located in the identified hub, should I cancel my provider and register at the hub in order to be eligible for hub services?
Answer: It is not recommended that you change any of your current child care plans. The Best Start Early Learning and Care Hubs will not be opening until the Ministry has approved and funded the plan.
When the Early Learning and Care Hubs are operating, your child does not have to attend the child care centre located in the hub or even attend the school where the hub is located for your family to access the hub services you need. Hub sites are intended to serve a community of schools and neighborhoods.
While it is intended that Early Learning and Care Hubs will have a child care provider who offers a full range of child care services plus other ancillary support programs and services, hub sites will not offer enough child care to serve all families within a community. Child care operations currently in locations other than the hub will continue to serve the community with quality child care as before. It is anticipated that many families will continue with their existing child care arrangements whether they are at the intended hub site or not, and travel to the hub to use other early learning and interventions supports when needed (i.e. public health nurse, screening clinics, parent education programs).
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Question: What services will Best Start offer new parents and their children?
Answer: Best Start will offer a full range of supports and services to new parents. The mix of programs and services and frequency of their availability will vary from hub to hub depending on community need and support for various services. We are optimistic that depending on demand, the range of support available would include, but not be limited to the following programs and services:
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Access to pre natal supports from an on-site Public Health Nurse
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Pre-natal and post-natal nutrition assessment and health teaching
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Access to post natal screening for new mothers and infants
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Information about accessing the Healthy Babies Healthy Children services
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Postpartum telephone calls and access to support groups facilitated by Public Health Nurses
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Parent Education Workshops on a variety of topics
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Speech and Language screenings
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Referrals to other agencies as necessary (i.e. speech and language therapy)
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Speech and language intervention programs
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Infant hearing screenings
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18 month well baby check ups including developmental assessments and immunization
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Answer: A Best Start Network has been created to develop the Best Start plan for Chatham-Kent and Lambton. The Network is composed of a Steering Committee and two Implementation Tables, one located in Lambton and the other in Chatham-Kent. The Steering Committee is comprised of representatives of the following organizations:
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Corporation of the County of Lambton
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Corporation of the Municipality of Chatham-Kent
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St. Clair Catholic District School Board
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Lambton-Kent District School Board
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Conseil Scolaire de District du Centre-Sud-Ouest
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Conseil Scolaire de District des Ecoles Catholiques du Sud-Ouest
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Ministry of Children and Youth Services (ex-officio)
The role of the Steering Committee is to provide leadership to the development of the plan, ensure consistency across the two communities, and develop the initial plan in collaboration with the Implementation Tables.
The Local Implementation Tables reflect the unique composition of each community and a broad range of community perspectives. Membership includes parent representation, child care organizations, school boards, the Ontario Early Years Centres, the municipality, and organizations serving families and children.
To assist in developing a plan that meets the needs of families in Chatham-Kent and Lambton, a number of focus groups were held across the communities, and a parent survey was distributed.
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Question: What communities are affected by Best Start?
Answer: There are two components to Best Start: Phase 1 communities and Demonstration communities. Phase 1 communities will implement all components of Best Start over a 10 year period. Phase 1 funding focuses on increasing licensed child care spaces and subsidies over the next 3 years. Chatham and Sarnia are Phase 1 communities. Demonstration communities that will fast track the implementation of the entire Best Start plan (including early learning and care hubs) over 3 years, instead of 10, and guide implementation across the province. The rural areas of Chatham-Kent and Lambton have been designated as the rural demonstration site.
Across the province, all communities will be able to access phase one of Best Start, which is focused on increasing child care spaces. Therefore, as part of Best Start, there will be new child care spaces available in both Chatham-Kent and Lambton County.
The Ministry of Children and Youth Services has identified rural Chatham-Kent and rural Lambton County as the rural demonstration site for Best Start in the province. It should be noted that the Ministry did not include St. Clair Township as part of the rural demonstration site for Lambton. The Best Start Steering Committee has written a letter to the Ministry of Children and Youth Services recommending that St. Clair Township be included within the rural demonstration site boundaries. We are waiting for a response from the Ministry regarding whether or not St. Clair Township can be included.
In developing the Best Start Plan, the Best Start Network is planning for all of Chatham-Kent and Lambton County. However it is recognized that the entire Best Start Plan will be implemented in the rural demonstration sites before it is implemented in the urban areas and possibly St. Clair Township, depending on the response from the Ministry.
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