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The rising interest in the implications of early childhood experiences for children's development later in life has brought with it a greater focus on early childhood care and education programs. Policy makers have become interested in how these programs operate and in understanding how they impact on the healthy development of children. With increased interest has come the recognition that operational aspects of programs affect their capacity to offer administratively stable, financially viable and high quality programming to families with young children. In this environment, the Vancouver Child Care Regional Delivery Model Pilot Project (VCCRDMPP) was developed to bring operators of large child care programs together to explore ways to increase the administrative effectiveness of their programs and to work towards the development of a coordinated planning system for child care in Vancouver.

VCCRDMPP participants included representatives of 18 Vancouver based child care organizations: 14 direct child care providers, 2 programs of Westcoast Child Care Resource Centre, City of Vancouver Social Planning and the BC Ministry for Children and Families. The participating child care organizations were all non-profit societies providing either a minimum of five licensed child care programs or at least 120 licensed child care spaces or smaller stand alone, parent managed child care societies or child care support services administered by Westcoast Child Care Resource Centre. VCCRDMPP addressed its expected outcomes through four component demonstration projects: Regional Umbrella Group, Collingwood Neighbourhood House Demonstration Project, Kiwassa Neighbourhood House Demonstration Project and the Administrative Partnerships Pilot Project.

This report addresses the project activities undertaken by the VCCRDMPP to meet the three levels of expected outcomes outlined in the Strategic Initiatives Evaluation Framework and discusses the extent to which these outcomes were achieved. The three levels of outcomes addressed are: Project Specific Outcomes, Regional Delivery Model Outcomes and Strategic Initiatives Outcomes.

It is important to note that the VCCRDMPP proposal was developed and negotiated prior to the completion of the Federal-Provincial agreement for Strategic Initiatives Projects. In addition, it took some time for the Regional Delivery Model and the Strategic Initiative Outcome Frameworks to be developed by the Province and these were only recently confirmed. These outcome frameworks did not easily match the Project's original design and intended outcomes. Matching the various sets of outcomes created some difficulties over the four years of the Project.

Project Specific Outcomes

Each of the four components of the VCCRDMPP had its own set of goals, activities and expected outcomes. This report addresses each of the components individually describing their activities and achievement of outcomes. The first component described is the Regional Umbrella Group (RUG).

Through increased networking, information sharing and joint problem solving amongst Project members RUG made significant strides towards reducing the isolation of member organizations. RUG activities both addressed the need of RUG members to improve program operations and provided opportunities for those interested in child care policy to listen, discuss and debate various policy issues. Within a structure of regular meetings, relationships were formed and strengthened. Participation in RUG increased information-sharing and most members reported that through RUG they have broadened their own awareness and understanding of child care issues and had more information upon which to base management decisions.

RUG participants who were "new to the field" or had recently taken on managerial responsibilities within their organization reported the greatest benefits in the area of improved administration and management of child care programs. Through increased availability of timely information and the ongoing formal and informal discussions with other more experienced child care providers these managers experienced significant professional growth during the project period.

RUG members were very positive about the increase in skills, knowledge and confidence of child care staff who had participated in the RUG Cross Organizational Management Training Series. At the same time, RUG members identified that a long term strategy to strengthen linkages with formal training institutions was needed. The Project took steps to increase these linkages through involvement with college representatives in the development of a proposal for ongoing training for administration of child care.

Jointly and separately all four components of the VCCRDMPP made positive contributions to the building of a common knowledge base among members about child care issues. VCCRDMPP recognized that for child care services to become more stable, operators needed to understand the factors that increased the likelihood of viability and those that made them vulnerable. One of the accomplishments of the Project was to explore and document these factors. Independent consultants worked with the Project to produce a set of tools for child care providers in the areas of child care planning, financial analysis and administration and management of child care programs.

At the same time, members reported they had some difficulty linking their increased knowledge specifically to the Project. Members were also involved in other concurrent community child care planning processes such as Supported Child Care and the Ministry for Children and Families Contract And Program Restructuring Process. They reported that their learning had been cumulative through all of these processes.

One RUG goal was "to increase the capacity to collectively plan for the coordinated development and delivery of child care services in Vancouver." Within the RUG Project, the notion of planning child care services was used to describe planning child care services within organizations and planning of child care services across organization in Vancouver.

Project data indicates that most direct service organizations in the Project developed more effective planning processes within their child care programs at least to some degree. Progress toward planning of child care services across organizations in Vancouver was slower than hoped for during the RUG Project. The creation of the Ministry For Children and Families, the regionalization process and the delay in the hiring of a child care contact for the Ministry contributed to the slow progress in this area. Within this changing governmental context, the Project, in Year Four, submitted a set of recommendations to the Ministry For Children and Families for a Regional Child Care Process which included a Vancouver planning group.

The Collingwood Neighbourhood House Demonstration Project involved the development of a semi-decentralized model of management and administration of its on-site and off-site child care programs. During the time frame of this Demonstration Project, Collingwood Neighbourhood House moved closer to integration of its child care programs into the full spectrum of community services it offers to the community.

At Kiwassa Neighbourhood House the Demonstration Project focused on stabilizing its Child Care Hub Model developed during the early 1990s and the co-development of additional child care services needed in its neighbourhood. This Project consolidated management practices and provided professional development opportunities to management staff. The focus on the development of effective management systems helped stabilize the Kiwassa Child Care Hub.

The purpose of the Administrative Partnership Pilot Project was to involve two stand-alone parent managed child care centres in the development of a management and administrative structure that would provide long term stability for stand-alone non-profit societies. Notably, the greatest benefit identified in this component was the increased paid time available for staff to complete the required administrative functions and to develop effective administrative and management systems. The timing of the Administrative Partnership Pilot Project was such that other groups are just beginning to learn about the administrative or management structures and approaches being tried by various stand-alone programs. Child Care programs in Vancouver are now benefiting through learning about the experience of both this pilot project and other child care programs that are undertaking organizational change processes.

Regional Delivery Model Outcomes

VCCRDMPP was intended to address three of the six regional Delivery Model Outcomes: reduced management pressures for individual child care programs, increased stability of child care programs and improved regional planning, development and delivery of child care.

VCCRDMPP successfully helped to reduce the management pressures of individual child care programs through reduced isolation of child care organizations and individual management staff within them and through provision of management training opportunities for program staff within VCCRDMPP organizations. Provision of financial resources to allow time for staff to complete administrative tasks was a key factor in reducing management pressure in individual child care centres.

VCCRDMPP also contributed to some degree to increasing the overall stability of the individual child care programs which participated in the Project. Activities which promoted shared understanding of the viability factors for child care programs were important features of the Project. Both Collingwood and Kiwassa Demonstration Projects strengthened links between child care programs and other programs within the same organization.

VCCRDMPP created a structure for child care managers from large organizations, policy makers and child care support services to work together to respond to common issues and challenges. RUG activities contributed to the building of a common knowledge base about child care issues, increased information-sharing and broadened members' awareness and understanding of child care issues. While the Project itself did not functionally engage in regional planning of child care services for Vancouver, in the final year of the Project, the Project submitted a set of recommendations to the Ministry For Children and Families for a Regional Child Care Process which included a Vancouver planning group.

Strategic Initiative Outcomes

VCCRDMPP was intended to directly address two of the six Strategic Initiative Outcomes: improved responsiveness and increased accessibility. The Project improved the responsiveness of the child care system in Vancouver primarily through support to the administrative and management functions within the member organizations. For most RUG members, this support came from the networking, information sharing, workshops and studies engaged in by the group. VCCRDMPP developed several resource documents which provide some tools to support programs to understand and develop their administrative and management systems.

VCCRDMPP made more resources available to child care than there had been previously. A primary contribution of the Project was the substantive funding for management of child care within several organizations. Although each of the sites involved in the demonstration projects used Project resources differently, the level of management staffing made possible through those resources contributed to the increased effectiveness of these child care organizations.

Increased accessibility was addressed through the Collingwood and Kiwassa Neighbourhood House Demonstration projects. At Kiwassa an innovative child care program was piloted at the nearby Racetrack increasing accessibility to child care for families needing care in the atypical early morning and late evening hours and on weekends. At Collingwood, the ability of the Neighbourhood House to develop a sustainable management structure for its continuum of child care programs also contributes to the long term stability of the programs and increased accessibility of programs in the future.

VCCRDMPP did not intend to address issues related to improved quality of care. However, with the improved working conditions for child care staff that was facilitated by improved administration and management capacity comes the suggestion that the quality of care may have been enhanced. While quality of care provided in these centres was not specifically evaluated, child care literature supports the notion that improved staff working conditions contributes positively to the quality of care provided to children.