Les Ressources

Source: Jane P. Preston, University of Saskatchewan

Summary: The attention given to Aboriginal early childcare has grown over the past decade. This recent interest is in contrast to the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s when the federal government paid relatively little attention to Aboriginal early learning programs. In the 1960s and 1970s, early childhood development programs and services for Aboriginal peoples were virtually nonexistent (National Indian Brotherhood & Assembly of First Nations, 1989). The programs that did exist experienced inadequate and/or sporadic funding and were often short-lived (Greenwood, 2000a). By the 1980s, Aboriginal Peoples began to articulate a need for early childhood programs, but it was not until the mid-1990s that the need for Aboriginal early learning programs was addressed more seriously by government leaders (Ball, 2005; Greenwood, 2000a). Friendly and Beach (2005) expressed the necessity of such programs by stating that, “All Aboriginal groups have larger than average child populations, making early childhood education and care an especially important First Nations Perspectives 1, 1 (2008): 98-120 Enhancing Aboriginal Child Wellness 99 issue” (p. xxiii). Statistics Canada (2006) also supported the necessity of Aboriginal early learning programs when indicating the fertility rate among Aboriginal women was 2.6 children per woman, as compared to a rate of 1.5 children among non-Aboriginal women.