View: Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | At-a-glance

7:30 AM – 8:30 AM
BREAKFAST AVAILABLE (Ballroom A & B)

8:45 AM – 10:30 AM
PLENARY SESSION (Ballroom A & B)

The Impact and Reach of the EDI Around the World: How the EDI became the national progress measure in Australia

Introduction: DR. MAGDALENA JANUS, Offord Centre for Child Studies  (Ontario)

Keynote: SALLY BRINKMAN, Telethon Institute for Child Health Research  (Australia)

Since its development, the EDI has been successfully used or adapted for use across Canada and in many countries around the world. International collaborations and implementations include regions in the United States, Chile, Egypt, Jamaica, Kosovo, Moldova and Mexico. Australia has adapted the EDI to fit their context, renaming it the Australian Early Development Index (AEDI) and has just completed their first nation-wide roll out. Using the EDI outside of Canada enriches the instrument, bringing it one step closer to being a global measure of early child development.  This session will share many of the cross-cultural findings and comparisons.

10:30 AM – 11:00 AM
BREAK

11:00 AM
CONCURRENT SESSION 3

CONCURRENT SESSION 3A - Children’s Development in Multi-lingual Communities
Ballroom C

Many Canadian cities are becoming increasingly culturally diverse and multi-lingual.  The demographic trend is towards an increasing population of immigrant and refugee families and children.  Responding proactively to the needs of children for whom English is not their first language is essential to building an effective system for young children in Canada.  This session will provide information on what we are learning about children’s development in multi-lingual communities and how this information can be made relevant for all.

MARIA YAU, Toronto District School Board (Ontario)

In this workshop, Maria Yau will share here research findings, based on the EDI, about young children’s development in a multicultural diverse city like Toronto. In addition, she will discuss the strengths and needs of these young immigrant children, their over-time school performance, and how an early-year intervention program—Parenting and Family Literacy Centres—in the Toronto District School Board has helped make a difference for these children.

Disentangling the influences of Poverty, ESL and Heritage Culture on Young Children’s Developmental Readiness for School
DR. CONSTANCE MILBRATH, Human Early Learning Partnership (British Columbia)

Canada as a whole, and British Columbia in particular (e.g., BC Settlement & Adaptation Program), has been working hard to create settlement services for immigrant and refugee families in communities and public schools with the aim of assisting families in the process of integration into Canadian society. Research recently undertaken at the Human Early Learning Partnership, focuses specifically on outcomes for ESL children from different immigrant groups in an attempt to disentangle the influences of ESL, poverty, and heritage culture on early developmental outcomes.  of poverty or, for some heritage cultures, provide a protective influence, ameliorating some of the consequences of poverty. This presentation will report on population research that examines the influences of poverty, ESL, and heritage culture on early developmental outcomes of children entering BC schools over a 7 year period and follows the persistence of early differences over an educational trajectory from kindergarten to middle school.

CONCURRENT SESSION 3B - Community Innovations
Victoria

“It takes a community to raise a child.”  This session will provide examples of communities who are thinking outside the box to make a difference for their children and families.  Participants will be encouraged to bring examples of innovation from their locales.

TERRA JOHNSTON, Healthy Child Manitoba

Leslie Massey and Brenda Wild from SPLASH Child Care, Tracy Krassman-Bamford from Central Parent Child Coalition and Tom Chan from the Winnipeg School Division will share success stories from their communities in Manitoba.

The EDI and Knowledge Mobilization
MARSHA CANN, Ontario Early Years, Simcoe County

This session focuses on how the EDI can be implemented and analyzed in a manner that maximizes the value of the results for collaborative planning in the community.  Specific examples are given as to techniques and tools that can be used to not only engage school boards, but other community partners and front line workers throughout the process.

CONCURRENT SESSION 3C - Children’s Developmental Trajectories
Albert

The EDI can be effectively linked to other data to gain a better understanding of children’s developmental trajectories from birth to high school graduation.  This session will provide information on work being done in British Columbia and Manitoba linking to health and education records.

What Population-Based Data Linkage Tells Us about the Development of BC's Children
JENNIFER E.V. LLOYD & LORI G. IRWIN, Human Early Learning Partnership (British Columbia)

Linkage of population-based databases, at the level of the individual child, provides an exciting methodology for tracking the developmental trajectories of young children. This presentation provides an overview of developmental trajectories research being conducted at HELP. We feature the Community Index of Child Development (CICD), a simple index that describes children's developmental trajectories from Kindergarten to Grade 4 at the neighbourhood level. We also describe findings from a study linking Kindergarten EDI data to Grade 4 literacy and numeracy outcomes for children with special needs. 

DR. MARNI BROWNELL, Manitoba Centre for Health Policy

The Manitoba Centre for Health Policy (MCHP) houses a collection of administrative health and social services databases (including the EDI) that can be brought together to study children’s health and development.  This presentation will describe some of the key databases and provide examples of how they have been used to examine children’s developmental trajectories.  Potential future research capabilities of the databases will also be discussed.

CONCURRENT SESSION 3D - Tools for EDI Knowledge Translation
Campaign B
Repeat – see session 1E

CONCURRENT SESSION 3E - The Importance of EDI Data to School Systems
Campaign A
Repeat – see session 2A

12:30 PM – 1:30 PM
LUNCH (Ballroom A & B)

1:30 PM
PLENARY PANEL 2 (Ballroom A & B)

A Platform for Action

Facilitator: DR. DAVID BUTLER JONES, Public Health Agency of Canada (Ontario)

The closing session of the conference, facilitated by Dr. David Butler-Jones, Canada’s Chief Public Health Officer, will provide a call to action for all participants.  What is needed to build on what we know and create an effective system for young children in Canada which integrates a comprehensive system of monitoring and evaluation? Be prepared to leave filled with inspiration and ideas.

Panelists:           

DR. ROBIN WILLIAMS, Council for Early Child Development and Niagara Region Public Health (Ontario)

Dr. Robin Williams will speak to the opportunities for local communities in contributing to building a system for young children that enhances their life paths.

Canada’s Early Vulnerability Debt: How to Eliminate It.  What it will Cost

DR. PAUL KERSHAW, Human Early Learning Partnership (British Columbia)

The Human Early Learning Partnership used internationally unique data to calculate for the first time in Canada what biologically unnecessary early vulnerability is costing the country.  We find vulnerability costs our economy about 7 times the total cost of our federal debt.  In response, we prepare a comprehensive six-part policy response to reduce early vulnerability to 15% of children by 2015; and to 10% by 2020.  Dr. Kershaw’s talk will feature the benefits and cost of implementing these important policy changes, providing cost analyses for all 10 provinces.

DR. ROB SANTOS, Healthy Child Manitoba

[Description to be added soon.]

3:30 PM
CLOSING REMARKS