Childcare & Education
Creating Vibrant Communities recognizes the close link between healthy childhood development and long-term health and well-being. This requires both universal approaches to early childhood development – such as a provincial breastfeeding strategy, access to early learning, child care, and high-quality education – and targeted initiatives to address the detrimental impact of poverty from childhood into the adult years.
RNAO Recommendations
Early Childhood Development, Child Care, and Ongoing Education
- Implement a provincial breastfeeding strategy that would improve health services by providing mothers/families with effective, practical breastfeeding support, and encourage cultural norms that would welcome breastfeeding as a basic human right.
- Fully implement the recommendations of the With Our Best Future in Mind report.
- Support the increased presence of school nurses, to promote health education, and public health measures in the school environment.
- Advocate for a national affordable, regulated, not-for-profit child care program.
- Designate funding to save threatened child care subsidies and build new affordable child care spaces
- Invest in a public education system that focuses on equitable access. Freeze tuition fees and increase access to needs-based grants for post-secondary education.