As mentioned in my earlier post, over the next while I will be posting information about various examples of comprehensive early years strategies that have been developed in other parts of Canada as well as Internationally. Last week, I wrote about the initiatives taking place in Scotland. This posting explores the recent strategy that was developed for New Brunswick.
This strategy includes a number of initiatives to help support young children and their parents. It also includes ways of getting communities involved in developing local strategies to meet the needs of families.
From the Strategy Report:
Our children’s future and the future of our province are dependent on how well prepared our children for school and for life. Be Ready for Success: A 10 year Early Childhood Strategy for New Brunswick, lays out how we can do this. It complements our health, wellness, education, and population growth strategies and focuses on our children’s earliest, most formative years – the years that set the stage for every child’s future health, self-sufficiency and success in life. We need to focus on the earliest years as a means of ensuring our children become healthy, productive adults and to prevent the developmental and health problems that can profoundly affect a child’s life. If we want a promising future we need to ensure that parents throughout the province have the tools and support they need to raise happy, healthy, confident children. We must ensure that a comprehensive network of quality child care services and early learning resources are available throughout the province. And we need this and future generations of children to be eager, curious and excited when they walk into their kindergarten classroom. As stated in When Kids Come First, "a society that cares about student success in school has to prepare for student success before school." This plan is about preparing our youngest children before school.
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