ECD Webinar: Educational Quality

Families Canada in partnership with Abilio, is excited to announce a new webinar in the popular ECD webinar series!  

About this event 

In this webinar, we will discuss the concept of quality in preschool settings and its potential contribution to children's overall development. How can we define quality? Drawing on the extensive literature on this subject, we will present different definitions of quality and the elements that constitute it. We will also describe the most frequently used observational tools used to assess the quality of preschool settings. Evidence from several studies will be used to illustrate the current state of preschool service quality in Quebec. Finally, we will present an on-site coaching intervention that has led to quality improvements in a significant number of childcare services.

Who is presenting?

Christa Japel holds a PhD in psychology from the Université de Montréal. She is an associate professor in the Department of Specialized Education and Training at the Université du Québec à Montréal. Her research interests focus on the various environments that have an impact on the psychosocial and cognitive development of young children, in particular the family context and daycare services. She has produced several publications on the quality of daycare services and 4-year-old kindergartens, as well as on vulnerable children at risk of school failure. She is a recognized expert both here and elsewhere in the field of early childhood education and care, and has contributed to the development of surveys conducted by Statistiques Québec and Statistics Canada. She has also developed, implemented, and evaluated several programs aimed at improving the quality of early childhood education and care services. Her program 'Les aventures de Mimi et ses amis' aims to improve the vocabulary of children from disadvantaged backgrounds, since the extent of their vocabulary in preschool is an important predictor of their learning to read and subsequent educational success.