We are launching Humans of ECE..share your story on the provincial wage enhancement grant.  Continuing from our Humans of ECEPower campaign we want to hear from you why the provincial wage enhancement grant is important to you.

Write your comments on the template and tell us why you need to keep the provincial wage grant.  Take a picture of yourself holding it and email it to us at [email protected]

We are doing this campaign alongside the petition.  Make sure you print, sign and mail us original copies of the petition.  If you are intererested in collecting signatures in your community to present directly to your local MPP, please email us at [email protected] 

Provincial Wage Enhancement Grant Petition

We have partnered with the Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care to launch a petition to continue the Provincial Wage Enhancement Grant to Registered Early Childhood Educators and early years staff in licensed child care.  This funding provides $2 per hour in wage support to many educators and it is critical that it continues.  Funding has not yet been confirmed beyond March 31, 2019.  The future of the grant is in the hands of the provincial government and will be decided by the Ontario Budget this spring. 

The AECEO Board of Directors is very pleased to introduce Rachel Lafferty as the AECEO’s Executive Coordinator.

Rachel Lafferty is a Registered Early Childhood Educator with a Bachelor of Science degree in Biology and Health Science and a Bachelor of Education degree with an Ontario College of Teachers registration in addition to a Master of Education graduate degree with a specialization in Distance Education.

She was the first member of her immediate and extended family to earn postsecondary credentials and did so while owning and operating a small business full-time. Rachel has experience teaching in early learning, elementary school, and college settings. While coordinating an Indigenous Early Childhood Education program for nearly seven years, she wrote ECE curriculum with an Indigenous focus and established successful partnerships with various stakeholders and community organizations. This included the establishment of a partnership with Contact North to provide an online ECE program that would allow students who would otherwise not have the opportunity, due to geographic and other barriers, to earn their ECE credential.

Rachel has extensive experience teaching children and adults in both face-to-face and online classrooms in addition to part-time ECE Professorships in the college system. She believes strongly in professional advocacy and is looking forward to working with the Association of Early Childhood Educators as Executive Coordinator.

Ms. Lafferty currently resides in Peterborough with her spouse and family.

Happy New Year, happy 2019!!

As we reflect on 2018, we are inspired to continue to advocate for the socially important and valuable work of ECEs and early years staff that happens around the province with children, families and in communities.

We have been hearing from ECEs and employers across the Province who are concerned about the Wage Enhancement Grant (WEG) continuing into next year. We understand that the Wage Enhancement Grant is important to the many ECEs and early years staff who receive this funding. We have heard no indication that the Wage Enhancement Grant is cancelled.

Here is what we know:

It's that time of year again! November 27th is Giving Tuesday - a day where charities, organizations and individuals join together to share commitments, rally for important causes, and think about others. Most people know about Black Friday and Cyber Monday, Giving Tuesday allows us to celebrate giving and volunteering.

The AECEO would like to take this time to thank all who have made charitable donations and/or provided support through membership, and the many, many volunteers who have worked with us this year on the Professional Pay and Decent Work campaign. Our campaign has only become stronger  - and will continue to grow - with your support.

“Well educated, well paid and competent early childhood educators are fundamental to high quality early years and child care programs that support children and families across the province … The introduction of Bill 47 and concurrent repeal of critical protections established in Bill 148 is deeply concerning to ECEs, early years staff, and workers across Ontario.

Too many ECEs, early years staff, and Ontario workers continue to face low wages in part-time, temporary or contract jobs without employment benefits, workplace protection or the right to form, and keep, a union. Even with the increasing professionalization of ECEs and the ample evidence pointing to the immense importance of their work for children, families, and society, ECEs have seen a very slow and limited increase in professional recognition through improved compensation and benefits.

The valuable and socially important work of ECEs and early years staff is threatened by persistently low wages and challenging working conditions. The AECEO urges the government to reconsider the decision to repeal workers protections as outlined in Bill 47. ECEs and early years staff across Ontario are calling on the government to fulfill their responsibility to workers, children, families and communities.”

See full written submission here. 

George Brown College, School of Early Childhood planned in partnership with:  Toronto Children's Services, The Toronto District School Board, Toronto Catholic School Board and P.A.C.E. 

Come together with other professionals who work in Kindergarten and School-Age Programs to…

Increase our understanding of "Children's Environment Inquiry: Indigenous

Perspectives Learn more about Food Literacy and what it matters

Explore Digital Literacy; the use of Apps in supporting learning

What we need to know about bullying online and in the playground

As part of the Early Childhood Educators of BC and the Canadian Child Care Federation National Conference in the Spring 2019 they are hosting a Students Voices as Leaders to be listened to. They have created a blog site at http://ececstudentleaders.weebly.com/ and are inviting students, instructors and ECEC field professionals to celebrate the voices of students as leaders. Every few weeks between now and the conference they will post a new question to explore, currently they have posted:

a) why student voices 

b) celebrating student work

I am a George Brown College Student in the Early Childhood Education diploma program, and I have done my third field placement at The Association of Early Childhood Educators Ontario (AECEO). The field placement at AECEO was entirely different from my first two placements in two ways. Firstly, instead of working in an Early Childhood setting with the children, I was working in an office environment. Secondly, the focus of my work was representing registered early childhood educators (RECEs). I chose this alternative placement to gain more in-depth knowledge about the field of ECE, the issues currently being faced by the sector and the role and importance of advocacy in the ECE sector. At the beginning of my placement, I was very nervous and overwhelmed. But, as the time passed and with the support and guidance of team AECEO, I started to understand the different tasks and activities, the AECEO is a part of and lead.

The AECEO Board, Editorial Committee and staff are very excited to present the Fall issue of the eceLINK magazine. 

We have once again partnered with Red River College to offer the Science of Early Child Development’s (SECD) highly-regarded online professional learning workshops to early childhood educators in Ontario. SECD’s engaging, multimedia resources are used around the world by people who want to learn more about the impact of the early years on lifelong health and well-being.

Participants will have online access to all workshop content (videos, readings, links, games, discussions) over a two-week period and have flexibility to work through the materials at times that are most convenient for them. 

These workshops fill up quickly - to avoid disappointment please register as soon as possible.

We are excited to launch our Action Toolkit the Provincial Week of Action is October 14 - 21, 2018. This year's theme is CHAMPIONS FOR CHILDREN in recognition of the essential role that educators play in the lives of our youngest learners. During the Week of Action we want to highlight ECEPower by raising the voices of ECEs and early years staff across Ontario.

We have joined forces with the Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care (OCBCC) to make the week
surrounding ECE Appreciation Day, October 14th - 21st, a Week of Action to support educators in their campaign for decent work and professional pay.

Our toolkit is designed to get you started in planning a local action to call for Professional Pay and Decent Work and to show appreciation for all ECEs and early years staff. 

The Ontario government has launched an online public consultation as part of its review of government spending. This is important as it will inform future decisions by the government regarding the effectiveness and efficiency of provincial programs and services, in areas such as children and social services and education.

During the past few years the AECEO has been leading the charge to improve compensation and working conditions for registered early childhood educators and staff through the Professional Pay and Decent Work Campaign.   From that work the Ontario Early Childhood Sector Decent Work Charter has been developed as one of the components to mobilize a collective effort to achieve greater recognition and improved compensation and working conditions for those employed in the sector.

Tell us about your experience with Decent Work! We are looking for an ECE that is willing to be involved in a short telephone interview that will be published in our Fall 2018 eceLINK.  We want to highlight ECE experiences with Decent Work and Professional Pay.  

AECEO welcomes new Interim Coordinator - Alana Powell, RECE

Alana is a proud RECE who has worked in programs directly with children and has been engaged in the child care advocacy movement in Ontario. Alana holds her ECE diploma from George Brown College, an HBA in Political Science from the University of Toronto, and is currently completing an MA in Early Childhood Studies from Ryerson University. Alana’s advocacy work is driven and informed by her experience working as an RECE, where she experienced firsthand the challenges facing the workforce. It is from this perspective that Alana continues to advocate for child care policy that will provide decent work and professional pay to all to RECEs.  Alana believes these structural changes are necessary for all RECEs to meaningfully engage in their socially and ethically important practice.  

As the professional association for RECEs in Ontario it is our purpose to advocate for respect, recognition and appropriate wages and working conditions for all RECEs.  It is in light of this that the AECEO expresses disappointment at the Ministry of Education's decision to remove the For Profit Maximum Threshold.

We know that RECEs are the key to quality in the early years’ sector - qualified and caring educators are essential to children’s experiences in child care settings. RECEs deserve professional pay and good working conditions; these are essential to the ethical and caring practice of RECEs, as noted in the AECEO’s Decent Work Charter. We believe that early childhood education and care is a public good and human right, not a commodity. From this position, the AECEO disagrees with the removal of the For Profit Maximum Threshold. We are concerned with this step towards privatization of the early childhood sector, which suggests the current government is taking a step away from their responsibility to provide quality, affordable, inclusive, and accessible early years and child care programs. The AECEO also firmly believes that the Ministry of Education should continue working with the sector to implement the workforce strategy and wage scale that was developed to address recruitment and retention of RECEs. 

Association of Early Childhood Educators Ontario (AECEO)

The Association of Early Childhood Educators Ontario is seeking a dynamic and committed individual for the position of Executive Coordinator.

About AECEO

The AECEO is the professional association for registered early childhood educators (RECEs) in Ontario. The AECEO’s mission is to build and support a strong collective voice for RECEs so they can participate in and influence positive change that benefits children, families, educators and communities. AECEO advocates for respect, recognition and appropriate wages and working conditions for all RECEs. AECEO is a membership based organization with approximately 2,000 current members. Our members are individual RECEs, ECE students, early years staff and organizations/programs from across Ontario.

Position:  Executive Coordinator, Association of Early Childhood Educators Ontario

Reports to:  AECEO Board of Directors

Position Summary:

The Executive Coordinator leads a small, hard-working team in the fulfillment of the AECEO’s mission through initiatives such as the Professional Pay and Decent Work project, Guiding Committee on Truth and Reconciliation, membership and fund development, professional learning, communications, community outreach and support, facilitating effective partnerships and government relations.

Call for Articles for eceLINK: The Peer Reviewed Collection

Issue: Spring 2020

Special issue: Common Worlding in Early Childhood Education Special Issue

Guest Editor: Veronica Pacini-Ketchabaw

Exploring children-climate relations, using creative paradigms, is significant at this time given the growing recognition of global ecological challenges and increasing awareness of the climate-related risks children face (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2014; UNICEF, 2007, 2015).  There is an urgent need to explore how adults can learn from and with children (Kraftl, 2015), and to identify creative and situated responses to support children’s sustainable living now and as they grow - without perpetuating the colonialism and anthropocentrism of the Anthropocene (Taylor, 2017). This special issue will address these needs through innovative and creative papers that investigate children’s engagement with climate change related issues in creative, hopeful and generative ways.

The salient theoretical construct for this special issue is common worlds (Common Worlds Research Collective, 2018). Children’s common worlds consist of the full gamut of complex relationships, traditions, and legacies that they inherit in the places in which they grow up (Taylor, 2013, 2017). Children’s common worlds include children’s relationships with their immediate natural and built environments, with the other human and nonhuman beings that share these same environments, and, in settler societies, with complex cultural, colonial, and environmental historical traditions and legacies. This inclusive feminist framework, developed by geographer Affrica Taylor, resists the nature/culture divide and situates childhoods within entangled human and nonhuman, social and environmental issues and concerns. Unlike the idealized natural worlds usually associated with Romantic Euro-Western traditions of nature and childhood, common worlds are the actual, messy, unequal, and imperfect worlds real children inherit and co-inhabit along with other human and nonhuman beings and entities (Taylor, 2013, 2017).

The special issue brings common worlds discussions into conversation with those of early childhood pedagogies to enrich narratives of climate change.  Specifically, we invite contributions that engage situated, hopeful, and speculative stories for livable futures within multiple childhood contexts. 

Submission deadlines: Abstracts are due July 1, 2019, and complete papers need to be submitted by September 30, 2019

Please email submissions to: [email protected]

The AECEO regrets to hear of any cost increases for registered early childhood educators (RECEs), including the recently announced College of Early Childhood Educators (CECE) $10 registration fee increase. Despite the necessary role of the CECE in professionalization, we know that RECE wages still do not adequately reflect the value of their work or their level of education and many experience financial hardship. This is why we believe it is in the best interest of our members to focus on our successful advocacy campaign for improved wages and working conditions for all RECEs.