works
with a number of funders to advance the inclusion of children
with special support needs in Canadian early learning programs.
We thank these funders for sharing our vision for of an
inclusive Canada that begins in the early years.
Our Measuring Inclusion Progress project,
funded by Social Development Canada, has helped us to develop,
refine and test ways of "Measuring Inclusion Progress"
in child care centres. Research was used to produce tools
and training packages for practitioners, trainers, advocates
and parents for use at workshops or self-training on-line,
to help to create a common knowledge base for inclusion
on Early Childhood Learning & Care (ECLC) service provision
across Canada.
This project helps child care centres
to include children with special needs, builds pan-Canadian
networks and alliances within the ECLC sector, and provides
useful information to researchers, trainers, disability
advocates, students, support agencies, and all levels of
governments. Across Canada, all these groups are helping
us to ‘test’ out the effectiveness of these
tools and their role in helping us to understand inclusion
quality. We welcome you to be a part of this action research
project as it unfolds across Canada.
We have completed The SpeciaLink Child
Care Inclusion Practices Profile and the SpeciaLink Child
Care Inclusion Principles Scale. These tools are uniquely
positioned for use in monitoring child care inclusion. We
have reshaped them into ECERS-R-like formats, adding a total
of 247 indicators. Beta versions of the Principles and Practices
are both now available on line. Response from governments,
universities, colleges, support agencies, centres and related
occupations has been more than encouraging. Clearly, our
colleagues recognize a wide range of needs for tools to
measure inclusion quality in child care.
SpeciaLink is pleased to provide 3-hour
workshops on the Practices and Principles at a number of
national, provincial and regional conferences. We encourage
2-day training sessions — with actual real-site observations
— which we believe to be critical if high inter-rater
reliability is to be established. Participants in our training
are able to participate in our interactive chat room where
reflections can be posted, questions answered, and peer-to-peer
support offered. Please contact us for more information.
SpeciaLink
Child Care Inclusion Practices Profile and Principles Scale
The SpeciaLink Inclusion Child Care Practices Profile
and the SpeciaLink Child Care Inclusion 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.
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
76 Cottage Road,
Sydney, NS B1P 2C7
Phone (902) 562-1662
FAX (902) 539-9117
Contact us by email
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