Category Archives: Uncategorised

October 25, 2019

Understanding the importance of ongoing professional learning and development, CAFRA has designated the 4^th Friday of each October (October 25, 2019) as an Early Childhood Educator Professional Development Day. This will be a day where ECE’s have the opportunity to learn together, unite under the common focus of continuous professional learning and become stronger as a community.

Substantial research on high quality Early Learning and Child Care programs worldwide clearly demonstrates that the greatest indicator of program quality is the knowledge, education and capacity of the Educators who work with children and families. In other words, educational preparation and the ongoing learning of Educators remains central to the quality of Early Learning and Child Care.

Please click the links below to see what some of our CAFRA centres are doing during the ECE Professional Development Day for 2019! Centres followed by “**” have space available for you to join them for their PD Day! See the link for details.

Terra Child and Family Support Centre**
UPDATE: Terra’s morning session is FULL, but there are still 15 spots available for the afternoon.
Bissell Centre**
Allen Gray Child Development Centre**
Talmud Torah Society**
City West Childcare & Community Support Society
Jasper Place Child and Family Resource Centre
McKernan Child Development Centre
Students’ Union and Community Early Learning Centre
Southview Child Care

Do you know of any upcoming professional development opportunities that would be of interest to CAFRA members? E-mail Vicki at admin@cafra.ca to have it added to the website and/or calendar. There are a few NEW opportunities posted now.

Nominations are now being accepted for the 2019 Minister’s Awards of Excellence in Child Development. The Minister’s Awards of Excellence in Child Development recognize professionals who make life better for children and families. Nominating these professionals, teams and programs honours excellence in their field. Doing so also celebrates their outstanding work with children at programs licensed or approved by the Government of Alberta. Find out more here. Nomination deadline is September 27, 2019.

The School Age Child Care Directors Association of Alberta (SACDA) is conducting a survey to gather information relating to SAC/OSC (School Age Care/ Out of School Care) across the province of Alberta. It should only take 5-8 minutes to complete. To participate in the survey, go here.

Everyone can now read about our new Board of Directors under “About CAFRA.”

Leadership Opportunity! AECEA invites AECEA members to submit an application for nomination to serve on the AECEA Board of Directors. Go here for more information: https://aecea.ca/webform/board-nomination.

First membership meeting of 2019-20 is September 19 at Southview Child Care. All members as well as potential new members are invited to attend! Hope to see you there!

Under For Current Members, CAFRA members can view the bios of nominees for the 2019-20 CAFRA Board of Directors.

Hope to see you at the Directors’ Retreat on Thursday, June 20! Refreshments will be served beginning at 9am. The meeting will begin promptly at 9:30am.

Your CAFRA Leadership Team was hard at work Thursday morning, finalizing plans for the upcoming Directors’ Retreat on June 20.

All members have been sent Evites and information for the event. RSVPs must be received by June 12. Questions? Contact Vicki at admin@cafra.ca

In the wise words of author Marty Chan: “If the candidate or party that I chose doesn’t win, it will mean I will have to work harder to shape the world I want to live in. If my candidate or party wins, I know the work isn’t done and I can’t rely entirely on a government to make my world better.” Whether your candidate did or did not win, we can all agree we have lots of work to do together! (Check Marty Chan’s Facebook page to see the rest of his quote.)

April and May are busy months for Professional Learning opportunities! Check out “Upcoming Events” under “Professional Learning” to see what’s coming up.

The provincial election is coming up Tuesday, April 16, 2019. If you were able to attend the membership meeting on March 21, you had the chance to hear about the election, the candidates, and advocacy. Links to the resources provided at the meeting are available under “Advocacy.”

Check out Upcoming Events for information about AECEA’s upcoming Engagement Webinars.

CAFRA membership fees are due now. If you haven’t paid yet and have questions, please contact Vicki at admin@cafra.ca. It’s important to include the membership form so we can update our member information. Also, be sure to complete and return the Membership Directory form if you’d like your agency to be included/updated.

CAFRA is on its way to attaining non-profit society status. Next step? Approving the by-laws at the March membership meeting.

Well, it’s really, really cold out there, but that’s nothing new anymore! There are already more hours of sunlight in a day and spring will be here before we know it!

EndPovertyEdmonton ELCSC is hosting a series of Talking Circles. The purpose of the Talking Circles is to shape and develop an approach that is responsive to the unique and distinctions-based needs of Indigenous children and their families in the city of Edmonton. See Upcoming Events for more details.

A reminder from AECEA that, if you are a CDS, professional development funding for upcoming conferences is still available. Applications can only be submitted through their online form and must be submitted prior to March 31, 2019 in order to be processed under the 2018-2019 fiscal year.

More new information today!

Under Related Organizations and Resources, Community Options has been added along with a link to their newsletters. A link to information about their upcoming Spring Into Inclusion conference is under Upcoming Events.

Heather Raymond has very kindly share many links to resources as well as her Power Point presentation and an electronic version of one of the articles she share with members at the last meeting. A link to all three documents can be found under Related Organizations and Resources as well as here.

January 17, 2019, Membership Meeting minutes are now available under “For Current Members.” (Need the password? E-mail Vicki at admin@cafra.ca)