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Telling the Story: Prepared by Louise Hanvey for the National Children’s Alliance The National Children’s Alliance – Policy Story Introduction and History The National Children's Alliance (NCA) is a network of 53 national organizations committed to improving the lives of children and youth in Canada. The NCA began in 1996, when a small group of representatives of national organizations concerned with children’s issues began to meet informally to network, share information and consider the potential for coordinating their activities. While the groups determined that it was important to work together to develop a policy agenda for children, they preferred to form a coalition rather than create a new organization. They agreed that the focus of the Alliance would be on common issues that cut across all organizations and that member organizations would remain autonomous. It was also decided that policy recommendations would be based on consensus, member groups would operate according to a set of guiding principles, and leadership would be shared among the members. Since 1996, the National Children’s Alliance has grown in size, strength and capabilities. Its membership now represents hundreds of thousands of people who work with children, youth and families throughout the country. The Alliance has played a pivotal role on children’s issues as a catalyst and facilitator of cross-sectoral dialogue and collaborative action. It represents the first time that national organizations from health, education, environment, recreation, literacy, disabilities, child care, social services and community-based programs have worked together to develop consensus on a broad range of public policy issues. The Alliance meets with members of the federal Cabinet, MPs from all parties, and federal officials responsible for children's issues. As front-line workers with children, Alliance members are acutely aware of both the needs and gaps in services and programs that exist today. In a comparatively short time, the Children’s Alliance has established a high level of credibility as a result of its selective interventions on children’s and youth policy issues: The mission of the National Children’s Alliance is to promote the health and well-being of children in Canada. Since its inception in 1996 the Alliance has worked to:
The Alliance first articulated its policy agenda in “Investing in Children and Youth”. This document called for the establishment of a National Children’s Agenda. The Alliance requested a federal policy framework that would support a national research and social reporting agenda, build capacity in the voluntary sector, develop family supportive legislation, and include a public engagement strategy with effective coordination mechanisms. The necessary components of the federal action plan were described as income security; social and community supports; national research and monitoring; and building capacity. Utilizing this document the Alliance engaged governments and the voluntary sector in creating the momentum which led to the National Children’s Agenda in May 1999. The policy agenda of the Alliance has developed and been enhanced over the years. It has always, however, encompassed three core components:
Inherent in all of these components has been the element of building capacity in the voluntary sector and enhancing the participation of the voluntary sector in policy development. The Alliance has consistently used the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child as the framework for principles. By maintaining the “child’s lens” on policy the Alliance has been able to keep policy recommendations true to a holistic model that blends income support and tax policy with services and community supports. This approach has allowed the Alliance to have a concrete policy focus without driving down to a level of detail that would act as a barrier to reaching consensus. While the Alliance engages in federal government policy development processes, members also maintain strong independence in developing policy capacity within their collective constituencies. This paper will explore the policy work of the Alliance since its inception. As background to this discussion, Table 1 highlights a number of the key activities of the Alliance that facilitate the policy work. (See Table 1 at the end of the paper). Sustaining Families The National Children’s Alliance has articulated that income security
programs provide a foundation for ensuring social inclusion. Parents have
primary responsibility for their The Alliance has advocated a number of policy approaches to address income security:
National Child Benefit The Alliance has articulated that the cornerstone of a strategy to address
income security for low-income families is an indexed National Child Benefit
(NCB). The current NCB is a joint federal, provincial and territorial
government initiative designed to reduce the depth of child poverty and
to "promote attachment to the workforce" by decreasing the added
costs of employment. Family Policy The National Children’s Alliance has identified parental leave
as an important part of family policy. The current system of family policy
is underdeveloped and insufficient to meet the needs of parents in the
labour market. The NCA continued to urge further reforms. There remained many families who did not qualify for the program based on the established criteria and out of financial necessity these parents were forced to return to the workforce before they were ready. In these cases, it is both the parent and the child who suffer. To allow all children to benefit from parental leave, the Alliance recommended that the eligibility criteria and target for parental leave be expanded to include others not covered such as the self-employed and part-time workers, that the waiting period be eliminated, and that benefits be expanded to 75% of earnings. As a longer-term approach the National Children’s Alliance also recommended funding parental leave beyond unemployment insurance, and extending the leave to two years. Support for Children with Special Needs As a result of the Alliance’s First National Roundtable on Children with Disabilities, a number of policy recommendations were made regarding children with special needs – including a number relating to financial policy. Recognizing the financial challenges involved for families with children with special needs, the Alliance urged a review of the impact of current tax policy on these families with the goal of improving fairness. The 2002 Speech from the Throne emphasized how “targeted measures for low-income families caring for severely disabled children are needed, to help meet the needs of the child and of the family.” The resultant budget included a new Child Disability Benefit for low- and modest-income families of children qualifying for the disability tax credit, as well as an expansion of the list of eligible expenses for the medical tax credit. While the focus on low- and moderate-income families is important, the Alliance maintains that tax policies around caring for children with special needs need to be broad based and available to all families. Building Healthy Children, Families and Communities Income security measures alone cannot promote optimal outcomes for children. The National Children’s Alliance asserts that families need access to a comprehensive range of services and community supports to ensure the healthy development of children and youth, including those who may be at risk of not reaching their potential. Healthy communities will build healthy children and healthy families. The National Children’s Agenda One of the major policy focuses of the Alliance – to build healthy communities for Canadian children – has been the establishment of a National Children’s Agenda. The Alliance has seen the National Children’s Agenda as a framework which will allow governments to work collaboratively with each other and with the voluntary sector in the following areas – overall policy direction; funding mechanisms; service coordination and management; evaluation and public accountability; and community capacity. Beginning with Investing in Children and Youth, 1998, the Alliance identified the principles for the framework of the Agenda as:
In May 1999, the federal/provincial/territorial governments signed an agreement to move towards implementation of a National Children’s Agenda. The Alliance’s 2000 Think Tank and Regional Forums were critical catalysts to identify the issues for the National Children’s Agenda, mobilize the voluntary sector in the process and define the needs of children in communities. In 2000, the Alliance attended meetings with Minster Jane Stewart to collaborate on creating the momentum for an early childhood development initiative. In September 2000 the federal government announced 2.2 billion dollars towards the federal/provincial/territorial Early Childhood Development Initiative (ECDI). The ECDI represented the agreement by all First Ministers, except for Quebec’s, for activities designed to promote sound early childhood development. The ECDI was the first concrete new action by governments within the general framework of the National Children’s Agenda. The federal government designated the Canada Health and Social Transfer program as the funding mechanism. Provincial and territorial governments agreed to expand services and programs in the areas of: healthy pregnancy, birth and infancy; parenting and family supports; early childhood development, learning and care; and community supports. Expanding the Children’s Agenda: Early Childhood Development The Children's Alliance considered the Early Childhood Development Initiative as the first building block in the implementation of the National Children’s Agenda. Although the funding fell short of the level required to adequately sustain programs for young children, the announcement provided hope that governments were willing to re-build the network of supports necessary to guarantee that all children have a good start in life. The Alliance continued to advocate for the expansion of ECDI funding from federal and provincial/territorial governments. Recognizing the ECDI as an important first step, the Alliance pointed out that the areas outlined in the ECDI were not presented as a comprehensive set of services for improving children’s early development, but rather as a menu of items from which provinces were able to pick and choose. This approach was inconsistent with the principle stated under the Social Union Framework Agreement, of ensuring access to a reasonably comparable set of services in all jurisdictions across the country. While the Initiative represented a significant opportunity for the Alliance and other interested organizations to improve services for children, and to develop new ways of working productively with federal and provincial/territorial governments, there were no mechanisms established to facilitate engagement by the voluntary sector in the planning and evaluation of the ECDI. The Alliance recognized that it was important for the sector to move quickly to propose some workable solutions to these issues. The December 2000 National Workshop of members worked to develop strategic priorities, resulting in a plan of action:
In 2001 the Alliance focused on developing and implementing these strategies with member organizations. The groups developed communications strategies that were aimed at ensuring a place at the table for the voluntary sector in policy development. As service delivery agents and community advocates, the sector was seen as having a key role in helping governments listen to communities and support community engagement in decision-making processes. It is well accepted that the early years of childhood are especially vital to children’s development and their future ability to learn. Research shows that participation in high quality early childhood care and education enhances language and social development and the chance of school success. The National Children’s Alliance, in their briefs to government, stressed the importance of continuing and increasing their investment in early childhood through the ECDI – particularly in the area of quality child care. It was critical to ensure that appropriate services, subsidies and the number of regulated child care spaces were enhanced to meet the gap in demand. They identified that while close to 1.4 million children used paid child care services in Canada, there were only about 500,000 regulated spaces. In their submission to the Standing Committee on Finance, the Alliance called for the federal, provincial and territorial governments to work collaboratively to establish a coordinated national child care plan as a link to the current ECDI. Again, the Alliance saw some positive outcome. In the 2002 Speech from the Throne the government expressed its commitment to increasing access to early learning opportunities and quality child care. In the 2003 Budget the government announced $935-million over five years for quality child care spaces and improved child care and pre-school services. In March, 2003, federal, provincial and Territorial Ministers responsible for Social Services reached agreement on a framework for improving access to affordable, quality, provincially and territorially regulated early learning and child care programs and services. Expanding the Children’s Agenda: Children aged six to twelve In 2002, the Alliance convened a national roundtable to shape a national agenda for children between the ages of 6 and 12 through collaborative policy dialogue among representatives from the voluntary sector, health, education, social services and all levels of government. In 2000, there were 2.7 million children aged 6 - 12 in Canada, accounting for approximately 9% of the entire population – this significant population will have a profound impact on Canada’s economic, social and cultural future. They are a diverse group – being increasingly of Aboriginal identity; coming from other countries both as immigrants and refugees; living in lone-parent families, and living in large urban centres. The Alliance acknowledged that while we are well aware in Canada of the importance of development in the early years of life, it is also important to create conditions that continue to enable children to reach their full potential beyond the early years. If we fail to optimize a child’s development in the early and in the middle years of their lives, the results can be problems that are very difficult to mitigate it in future years. The Roundtable called on the federal government to expand the funding of the ECD agreement to include children ages 6 to 12. The Roundtable recommendations focused on the integration of services for children in this age group; the importance of a new funding structure – that fosters collaboration rather than fragmentation in funding services and supports; ensuring that policies are developed through an ‘inclusion lens’; ensuring the involvement of community-based services in the policy process; and creating mechanisms to monitor and evaluate the implementation of policies. Expanding the Children’s Agenda: Community Supports and Services Many of the member organizations of the National Children’s Alliance
are engaged in the delivery of essential services at the community level
all across Canada – education, health care, child welfare, and child
care. The Alliance is increasingly concerned about the variability in
the mix and quality of social services available across jurisdictions.
There are jurisdictional issues which seem to mitigate against a coherent
strategy for community social services. Accessibility to a range of community-based social and community services is critical to support the healthy development of children and youth. Services need to be responsive to family needs and therefore integrated and accessible within social and health services at the community level. The Alliance has urged that a coordinated national strategy is needed for early childhood care and education, child welfare services, family support services and youth services. Policies must provide an integrated approach to support community services. The Alliance’s 2000 Think Tank stressed that the National Children’s Agenda should develop a new public system for child and family services jointly funded by federal and provincial governments, delivered locally according to community needs and priorities, and supported by sufficient resources and mechanisms to promote sharing of effective best practices and encourage innovation where needed. The ultimate goal would be to allow children to be the best they can be and to increase the spectrum of choices and supports in communities to enhance the well-being of children and their families. They suggested the following principles: accessibility, portability and congruency – so that children and families have access to a comprehensive and coordinated set of services and community supports; respect for diversity; public, community-based administration – so that decision making about the mix of services, funding arrangements and the balance between public, non-profit and market delivery be established and overseen by public authorities, responsible to democratically elected assemblies; evidence-based – so that research and monitoring of program outcomes be part of the policy. The principles for funding should be: adequate for the achievement of the agreed upon goals of the NCA; transparent and accountable to the public; respectful of jurisdictional authorities; reliable and stable; and sufficiently flexible so that different or changing needs can be accommodated in different places and over time. There should be two parts to the mix of services: essential services that should be available in every community; and a broader "community basket" of customized services, selected and provided according to local community needs. Essential services and programs would include: preventative, community-based health services, including disease-prevention and wellness-promotion; childhood development services for both pre- and school-aged children that augment their physical, intellectual, emotional and social well-being, high-quality, affordable child care; resources and supports to families to assist parents in the child rearing role; a strong public education system that promotes early and continuous learning; programs for children and youth at risk; community-based recreation programs; an effective child welfare; and integrated and coordinated programs and services directed to youth and their families in trouble with the law. Housing Recreation The recent Speech from the Throne acknowledged the importance of recreation through its commitment to work with partners around the development of a national strategy for healthy living, physical activity and sport. Additionally, a commitment was made to convene the first ever summit on these issues in 2003. The Alliance has urged that as part of the national strategy for healthy living, physical activity and sport, there needs to be a significant investment around infrastructure for the development and maintenance of non-exclusive community play and recreation spaces. Priorities need to be given to the development of inclusive green spaces, parks, play spaces/structures and wading pools in all communities across Canada, with priority given to distressed neighbourhoods and communities. Additionally, programs and services need to be developed to encourage community engagement in these spaces. The Alliance recommends the establishment of a Children’s Infrastructure Fund to meet the physical activity and sport needs of children and youth. Health, Education and Social Services Today, silos exist in funding allocations for education, health and social services. Each group works separately, competing for funding and often vying with each other for similar, complementary initiatives. This silo effect creates a lack of understanding of how groups can collaborate to develop innovative and integrated programs and policies. To improve effectiveness, these sectors must work together in program development and strategic planning. This will result in a more efficient and cost effective provision of quality services. Health Services What is currently being provided by the provinces/territories under the umbrella of the Canada Health Act is not meeting the needs of children and youth. Home care, long-term care, rehabilitation services, occupational therapy, physiotherapy, psychology, social work services, pharmacare, public health and primary health service delivery are all essential services for children and youth. These deficiencies result in particular hardships for children with disabilities and their families. The Alliance has called for a protected, sustained, comprehensive, long-term budget targeted for universally accessible child and youth health care services and programs, to be provided to all regardless of family income, recognizing their unique developmental needs. A multi-faceted, national public health strategy is needed to increase public understanding about the factors that influence individual and community health and well-being. The purpose of this strategy would be to broaden people’s understanding of health, provide accurate information about current and anticipated future expenditures, identify pressures and alternate solutions and build public support and political will. Under this strategy, successful preventative approaches could be featured, champions could speak out about the value of these approaches, and political leaders could help build bridges across sectors, especially between medical institutions and other community organizations committed to health and wellness. Accountability to Canadians and the World Over the past 13 years, Canada has committed to a number of national and international agreements that have an enormous impact on the lives of children, youth and their families:
These agreements show that Canada is committed to children – but the promises brought forward in these agreements need to be coordinated if they are to have any immediate or long-term impact. Coordination of the commitments made in each of these agreements will ensure that the overall direction toward improving the lives of children, youth and families is advanced to achieve mutual objectives. The National Children’s Alliance has stressed that successful implementation of the National Children’s Agenda will be dependent upon a vibrant third sector to collaborate in the planning, implementation and evaluation phases. The voluntary / NGO sector's role in national information sharing is crucial for dissemination of best practices in program delivery and evaluation. As Canada implements the National Children’s Agenda, it is critical that evaluation mechanisms are considered. In the collaboration among governments and the voluntary sector to deliver community services and supports, national research and reporting is needed to monitor what makes a difference in the lives of children, youth and families. As a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and through the recent commitment to develop a National Plan of Action, Canada also has an international obligation to monitor the health and well-being of children. The National Children’s Alliance has recommended the development
and implementation of a sustainable long-term national strategy to monitor
the health and well-being of Canada’s children and youth in collaboration
with the voluntary / NGO sector. This strategy needs to include a national
research agenda, coordinated data collection systems and a national mechanism
for reporting.
As a result the Committee adopted the Alliance’s recommendation that the federal government fund third party monitoring of expenditures of the ECDI. In addition to being important, third party monitoring is very complex. A discussion paper, Third Party Monitoring of the Early Childhood Development Initiative, describes these complexities, and was presented during the 2002 National Symposium to generate discussion on how best to monitor the ECD agreement from the perspective of nongovernmental, voluntary organizations serving and advocating on behalf of Canadian children and their families. The Success of the Alliance The Alliance has been highly successful. This is linked to the high levels of engagement, participation and contribution of the member organizations and individuals involved. The structure of the Alliance has also contributed to its success. The Alliance chose to remain a collective, without an organizational structure and formal rules of operating. This has resulted in the Alliance using creative ways of working, remaining light, nimble and responsive, consistently building on strengths, expertise and resources of member organizations; and maximizing limited resources and staffing to benefit the collective. While the Alliance’s principles of working together have never been formally adopted or even explicitly articulated, they clearly contribute to success. These principles are:
The National Children’s Alliance has a unique style of leadership, and this is one of the strongest contributors to its success. This leadership is characterized by a shared model of leadership for internal and external relations; active participation of organizations in the decision-making process; a decision-making model that is based on consensus; transparency and openness in process; including decision-makers from organizations at the table; and having the “right” mix of leadership and process.
Membership List of the National Children’s Alliance
Table 1 – needs work
About the Author Louise Hanvey has been working on children’s issues for over 20
years. She is the author of the NCA background paper on children with
disabilities. She was the project director for the past four editions
of the Canadian Council on Social Development's Progress of Canada's
Children. She was principle author of the Health of Canada's
Children: A CICH Profile, Editions 1 and 2 and principle editor of
Health Canada's Family-Centred Maternity and Newborn Care: National
Guidelines.
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