Innovation Centre>The Elora Partnership

The Elora Partnership is a consortium of children’s services providers from across Ontario focused on the development of an effective model for the accreditation of home child care providers. The Partnership includes Family Day Care Services, Toronto, Macaulay Child Development Centre, Toronto, Network Child Care Services, Toronto, Andrew Fleck Child Care Services, Ottawa, Today’s Family, Caring for Your Child, Hamilton, and The Region of Waterloo Home Child Care Program.

The consortium partners have worked collaboratively on home child care system issues since 1999. Quality in Home Child Care Settings: A Critical Review of Current Theory and Research, commissioned in 2000 was conducted by Dr. Irene Kyle and shared with members of the Home Child Care Association of Ontario in October 2000. At the same two-day institute, Dr. Donna Lero presented research about Ontario home based child care gleaned from the federally funded "You Bet I Care" project.

In 2001 the consortium was funded through the provincial Early Years Challenge Fund to research and develop a model for home child care accreditation in Ontario.

The objectives of this project were:

• to enhance the quality of home child care by offering an accreditation system to an initial group of providers in five Ontario municipalities;
• to develop an evaluation process for the accreditation model and to submit a project report in 2004;
• to develop parent awareness and recognition of the accreditation system as an indicator of quality in home child care among the parents who participate in those municipalities.

The Executive Summary, full report and Review of the Literature are available as pdf documents.