Cradle To Career Milestones: Children Who Are Kindergarten Ready

Children who are kindergarten ready are more likely to have a foundation that supports future learning and better health. This includes the first 1,000 days (prenatal care).

The Kindergarten Ready (Milestone 1) CAN Working Group launched in January 2021. Twenty-four members spent several months identifying community assets and prioritizing barriers within their respective neighbourhoods. Solution design with 28 service providers and subject matter experts began in late 2021. In total, the group collectively spent 882 hours completing this work.

Some of the barriers identified for this specific milestone include:

• Information about programs and services not reaching caregivers in priority neighbourhoods
• Limited professional in-person and hands-on support for expecting and new caregivers
• Need for peer-to-peer support group opportunities amongst expecting and new parents
• Limited access to healthy food and nutritional supports
• Lack of access to early literacy development materials and practices
• Lack of access to affordable, flexible and emergency childcare options which creates barriers to employment and accessing essential community supports
• Challenges in navigating supports during transition periods and lack of coordination among services

ProsperUs partner, St. Clair College, released two reports looking at early years literacy challenges in priority neighbourhoods, and creating a profile of the resources, community demographics and cultural landscape of the target neighbourhoods. These reports will be used to create new strategies to improve early years literacy.