HELP Findings that Contradict HELP’s Promotion of Early Schooling/Daycare (broken link)

Negative behavioural outcomes found for daycare centres

“Pro-social behaviour scores were lowest for children in licensed day care and highest for children in unregulated home care and relative care.“

Statistics Canada “National Data Sets: Sources of Information for Canadian Child Care Data” (broken link) by Hertzman and two other HELP staff, p.14

ECCE programs have no effect

“OVERVIEW OF THE RESULTS: Results of our analyses suggest that participating in ECCE programs is associated with parent, teacher, and standardised outcomes. However, following the introduction of control variables, participating in early childhood care and education programs and services at the age of 2 and 3 had little direct association with children’s home and school outcomes in Kindergarten. The sole exception to this general pattern occurred for participation in ‘other’ [such as parent-child drop ins] early education programs.”

HELP, “The association of early childhood care and education to children’s experiences in Kindergarten” (broken link) February 2006, by Dafna Kohen, Garth Lipps, and Clyde Hertzman (The key finding is buried on page 17 where you may not dig to find it.)

Most licensed daycare is of low quality

“Most licensed daycare in Canada”is of minimal to mediocre quality.“

“You Bet I Care! 2” (broken link) by HELPS’s Hillel Goelman et al, p. ix-x

Most licensed daycare in Canada does not encourage children’s cognitive development

• “The majority of children age 0-12 in centres do not receive adequate amounts or types of experiences to promote language and cognitive development.“
  
  Gillian Doherty, co-author of “You Bet I Care!” “Quality & Predictors of Quality in Canadian Child Care” (broken link) Centre for Excellence for Early Childhood Development, Regina, June 2005, p. 4
• Of the 234 licensed daycares that volunteered for the study, only 44.3% of preschool-age centres and 28.7% of infant/toddler centres and 36.8% of family daycares are “providing activities and materials that support and encourage children’s development.” That was with staff:child ratios of 1:2.6 to 1:4.8, far better than regulation standards.
  
  “You Bet I Care! 2” (broken link) , p 34,73, ix , Report 3 Executive Summary