SpeciaLink puts researchers, policy makers, parents, early childhood educators and directors in touch with the best inclusive practices on the frontlines of Canadian child care. SpeciaLink's goal is to expand the quality and quantity of opportunities for inclusion in child care, recreation, education, and other community settings, to young children with special needs and their families. Our findings are available to EVERYONE.

:: What's New ::

Dr. Sharon Hope Irwin, a longtime champion for child care and the inclusion of children with special needs will receive an honorary doctorate from the University of Winnipeg, June 1. READ ARTICLE. Commencement Speech University of Winnipeg, June 1, 2008 Sharon Hope Irwin   These four have devoted themselves to community service Winnipeg Free Press - May 31, 2008 The University of Winnipeg celebrated four remarkable lifetimes with honorary degrees at today's spring convocation -- decade after decade of service and caring in the community, to child care, health care, and philanthropy.

Have you heard the buzz? Specialink has two uniquely Canadian tools to reflect on and measure inclusion quality in child care centres — The SpeciaLink Child Care Inclusion Principles and the SpeciaLink Child Care Inclusion Profile, available by request.

Improving Quality, Enhancing Inclusion Partnerships for Inclusion ~ Nova Scotia ~ This evaluation report describes the first four years of an innovative approach that combines assessment, on-site consultation, and the provision of resources and personal support to directors and lead educators (head teachers) in preschool rooms in licensed child care centres. The project was designed to achieve two goals: (1) To improve overall program quality in child care centres, with a focus on promoting change in the preschool classrooms, and (2) to enhance child care centres’ inclusion capacity and inclusion quality. Evaluation procedures were used to determine both immediate and longer-term impacts of this model on the first four cohorts (98 child care centres) in Nova Scotia that volunteered to participate in the program. Donna S. Lero, Ph.D Sharon Hope Irwin, Ed. D. Download the Executive Summary (24 pages, 316KB) Download the Book (184 pages, 2MB)

The SpeciaLink Child Care Inclusion Practices Profile and Principles Scale
are tools for assessing inclusion quality in child care centres. Used together, they provide a picture of sustainable and evolving inclusion quality — an emerging issue as more children with special needs attend community-based centres and as inclusion pioneers leave their centres and a new generation of directors and early childhood educators take on the challenge. These documents are available by request and are distributed at most of our training. SpeciaLink appreciates the financial support of the Canadian Council on Learning as we refine the instruments to meet standards for high quality research.

If you have not yet taken part in our inclusion training, please visit SpeciaLink on the Road, to find out where we are offering training next.

SpeciaLink-the National Centre for Child Care Inclusion
University of Winnipeg, 2E22-515 Portage Avenue, Winnipeg, MB, R3B 2E9
Phone: (204) 258-2901 · Toll Free: 1-866-902-6333 · Fax: (204) 786-7803
info@specialinkcanada.org

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