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Progress Towards the Enhancement of Child Care Services for Military Families

The Canadian Forces (CF) Family Child Care Advisory Committee is making significant progress towards enhancing child care services to meet the unique needs of military families.

The committee was established in 2006 in response to concerns raised by the Military Family National Advisory Board. It held its third meeting on 11-12 December, 2008. Over the course of their meetings, the committee has identified the current child care options available to military families, and discussed ways to fill the gaps in service and improve existing services to best meet families’ needs.

In Spring 2008, the committee developed the following vision for the future of CF family child care:

“An affordable high quality child care system that: is able to meet 80% of the identified child care needs in each CF community; serves children of all ages including those with special needs; provides services in both official languages as appropriate; provides overnight and weekend spaces as needed for operational support; and is supported by an accountability structure that builds on the existing Military Family Services Program framework, ensures consistency, and has adequate levels of Department of National Defence funding.”

Committee members include military personnel, spouses of military members with children, Military Family Resource Centre staff and Director Military Family Services Field Operations staff. This diverse group of volunteers give perspectives from CF communities across Canada, and provide a wide range of experience with military family life.

The committee’s co-managers, Gillian Doherty and Anne Maxwell, bring extensive knowledge of child care delivery models, legislation, regulation and policy development to this project. Anne has worked for the past 17 years in management positions at the Canadian Child Care Federation, most recently as Senior Director of Projects and Programs. Gillian spent several years working for the Ontario government developing policies and programs to serve children and their families and is a respected researcher whose expertise on quality child care is recognized across Canada.

The committee will be presenting its recommendations, making suggestions for moving ahead and seeking participant feedback at the CF Family Services Summit II in Ottawa.