Enough carping on the detail from me - so what would I do? How would I approach this?

First of all I would like to offer a fundamental diagnosis and then offer an alternative and then a new approach based on this.

The Diagnosis - Wrong Lens Leading to Wrong Assumptions - What we need is a new institution like School that we can control directly.

The report and so the plan makes a fundamental diagnostic error - The core assumption is that all the myriad and complex issues that arise around human development in this critical period of 0-6 can be solved by inserting a controllable institution into the slot. If we in effect pushed the school system back into the Early Years we would get a much better result.

For this is what the report and the plan implies. The report also claims to have a great deal of literature support for this assumption. There is no mention in the report or the plan of what is the key problem. There is no mention of what success will look like or why. There is no mention of even "better" will be. There is just the assumption that if we build this - it will be good.

The plan as it is now unfolding makes the new centres the focus of the work. All other aspects of the system - principally parents as the key influencer of the child's development - pre natal - family support - the most important group of children/ the vulnerable - are all sidelined. 

The Money in this plan is used as a lever to shift effort, attention and resources to the new institution. The money flows to the institution and only to those inside them. If what you do or want does not fit this one design, you are out.

This of course is why all institutions today are in such trouble - they trend off their stated mission to their core real mission which is to serve the institution itself rather that those it claims to serve. This is why institutions jealously attack any funding threat even if the alternative is better for the mission.

Why this wrong assumption? Because the context for the report was the School and Daycare. Hammers look for nails.

The Appropriate Lens - This is all a System - Systems have to be "grown" not built

The most important two things missed by the report and so by the plan are these:

• The most important influence on a child's development is the family. Most of the trajectory for life is set by the age of 2. Any assessment of the challenge and the point of leverage has to make this point the foundation. Parents are not an afterthought who might have the odd meeting at a centre but are the pivot of the work.
• Secondly and consequently - 30 % of the kids who now arrive in grade 1 have lost the battle already. For a host of reasons not all related to poverty - their parents or parent has not had the support that we used to have to do the best that they could. The result is that we not only lose this group permanently but they too influence all the school system so that by grade 10 we have in total lost 70% of all the kids. Yes 70% leave high school without the social and academic skills to be not only valid workers but citizens. THIS IS THE PROBLEM.The vulnerable kids are the problem. This is not mentioned once in the report or the plan.

At the moment on PEI there is a small system that is touching all the parts of the challenge.

• When a woman conceives, she meets with a doctor. This doctor can give her medical advice but could also put her in touch with a prenatal class to help her prepare to be a parent and to meet other mothers who can offer community - at the moment this is not systemized - sometimes this happens many times not - an opportunity
• There are prenatal classes on offer - these take place in family resource centres - sometimes mothers go because of a referral sometimes not. Many don't know that such a service exists.
• When every baby is born on PEI, the parents are tested for how well they may be able to cope as parents. Those that look vulnerable are offered the Best Start service. This involves a worker coming to your home once a week for now 2 years to help you in parenting. Some take this - some dont'.
• Family Resource centres operate all over PEI - they are linked into Best Start and to the Prenatal work and to each other. They offer a wide range of parent support services.
• There are now daycare centres all over PEI that are wondering how they will fit. Some are run by family resource centres. Most belong to ECDA or ELOPEI.
• There is one model Early Years Centre in operation called Smart Start - this runs in a school and have full integration with parents. It is measured using the new tool for development that the new system will use. It is run by a family resource centre and funded as a pilot by the McCain foundation - if there was to be a curriculum it might be worth studying this.
• The new Kindergarten system start this fall in the schools. It's brand new.

THIS is the current system of services on PEI. it is loosely connected. It NEVER meets as a system. The new plan ignores all of this but Daycare. The new plan allocates all the new money to this.

The money goes to the institution and not to the child. This is a Darwinian process that will pull resources from the system and most importantly from the the pivot - parents and the vulnerable.

The key is to acknowledge that the parents and the vulnerable are the focus.

So what to do?

See part 2 that will follow later today