Capilano U wins Child Care Awards of Excellence
The Child Care Awards of Excellence recognize the outstanding achievements of people, organizations and local governments who help families and communities thrive by providing or supporting the delivery of quality child care in B.C. Kiwassa’s Childcare department and Capilano University are recipients of a 2021 Child Care Award of Excellence. The ceremony will premiere on the BC Government YouTube channel on Tuesday, May 25th, 2021
Capilano University has an excellent reputation in the community for its Early Childhood Care and Education program. For many years, we have had the pleasure of having their students do their practicum in our programs at Kiwassa and many of our current educators have attended Cap U.
It was a result of our direct observation, and reputation, of the high quality of education provided by Cap U that led us to approach them to assist us in developing a new solution to an age-old problem that was further exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic – having enough qualified, skilled and available educators for our children. With the increased potential for staff to become ill and our need to be able to continue to provide quality care for our children, we had to find a way to ensure we had enough trained educators to meet our needs.
Cap U agreed to provide an online course for Kiwassa Childcare Department’s on-call educators, support staff, and other individuals who wanted to work in the childcare field but didn’t have the formal education required.
The online course, EDUC 179, Guiding Young Children, introduced students to a variety of pedagogical approaches focused on responding to the needs of the individual child. Working with the BC Early Learning Framework, this course supported students in their ability to promote each child’s self-esteem, sense of belonging, and learning to live well with others…critical skills in the time of a global health crisis experienced by children and families.
Following this course that was offered to 30 people in the Fall of 2020, Cap U partnered with another branch of Kiwassa to provide a slightly different version of the same course. The students this time around, starting in early 2021, are women who have experienced trauma and Kiwassa employment staff are working with them to overcome barriers to learning as they seek out new employment opportunities. Many of them lost their jobs due to the pandemic and by taking this course, they will have the opportunity to work as an Early Childhood Education Assistant in Kiwassa’s childcare centres.