Vancouver/CMEDIA: To help reportedly detect and prevent child abuse in Canada, the governments of Canada and Manitoba have partnered with the Canadian Centre for Child Protection (C3P) to create a model for early childhood educators.
“Ensuring that our child-care professionals receive high-quality training…that best supports children…an important investment to offer resources to child-care professionals…allow more children to get the help they need,” said Children and Social Development Minister Jenna Sudds.
The new initiative which began May 9 will provide in-depth training, policies and age-appropriate curriculum for safeguarding children in Canada.
“Our goal is to…keep children safe from abuse…making sure early childhood educators …recognize signs of abuse and how to report them…more children and families get the help they need,” Manitoba Education and Early Childhood Learning Minister Nello Altomare said.
Access to mandatory online training as well as supported by digital and print resources to identify possible child abuse in infants to 12-year-olds would be received by more than 7,500 staff from over 1,150 facilities including child-care centres and home-based child-care providers, as well as up to 750 students through eight post-secondary early childhood educator programs.
Funded under the Canada-Manitoba Early Learning and Child Care Agreement, a $98-million funding agreement over four years, the training aims to significantly improve early learning and child care for all children in Manitoba with a focus to provide quality early learning and child care through workforce development, training and educational opportunities.
The governments of Canada and Manitoba are providing $250,000 to the C3P in support of launching this initiative.
“This level of comprehensive investment from the Early Learning and Child Care agreement in early childhood education is unprecedented in Canada – we hope to see other provinces follow,” said Noni Classen, director of education, Canadian Centre for Child Protection. “Child-care providers have unique relationships with children and families and they have a key role in safeguarding children. This initiative will increase early childhood educators’ capacity to protect children by providing access to professional development opportunities and evidence-based resources to help keep the children in their care safe.”
Besides the mandatory training, the suite of C3P supports available to child-care professionals includes:
- The Commit to Kids program kit helps manage risk relative to their organizational culture, physical space and environment, hiring and supervision and confidentiality by assessing their programs, services and procedures.
- Teatree Tells: A Child Abuse Prevention Kit, is a printed child sexual abuse prevention program that teaches early childhood educators for children four to six years of age how to address the subject of child sexual abuse with families and children.
- Kids in the Know: kindergarten to Grade 6 Lessons, is a national safety education program engages students with interactive activities to help teach personal safety skills and reduce the risk of victimization online and offline.
