Resources

Quality Assurance

Evaluation or early childhood development programs and initiatives increase the effectiveness and efficiency of support provided to children and families.

ECD Evaluation Project

The collaborative ECD Evaluation Project is focused on creating an integrated evaluation and reporting system for early childhood development programs and services in BC. The project, which is guided by the vision ‘Children are healthy and develop to their full potential’, was initiated in 2005 with research into common child outcomes for the province. In 2006, the project adopted a framework within which to create a province-wide evaluation system in support of the following four long-term outcomes:

  1. Mothers are healthy and give birth to healthy infants who remain healthy.
  2. Children experience healthy early childhood development, including optimal early learning and care.
  3. Parents and families have the knowledge, resources and support they need to help their children develop to their full potential.
  4. Communities support the development of all children and families.

The project is being led by a cross-sectoral group of BC funders and agencies, including the United Way of the Lower Mainland, Success By 6®, the Max Bell Foundation, the Ministries of Children and Family Development, Education and Healthy Living and Sport, the Public Health Agency of Canada and the Human Early Learning Partnership.

In the fall of 2006, a common logic model and evaluation tools were developed for outcome #4; they were piloted the following year in 16 communities across BC. In 2008, the early childhood community capacity building evaluation was rolled out in 60 communities across the province, and will expand to approximately 90 communities this fiscal year.

The project is currently focused on its second phase, the development of evaluation tools for outcome #3, ‘Parents are empowered and supported to nurture and care for their children’.