Submission to Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services First Call’s September 2021 budget submission, highlighted five priority areas for children, youth, and their families, with recommendations for next year’s budget: Poverty reduction measures and income security for families Investments in early childhood development and prevention services Support youth MORE
The BC Government’s 2022 budget consultations are underway and First Call has developed an overview of our key priorities for your reference. First Call’s submission reminds government that we have a long way to go in ending child poverty with 1 in 5 BC children still growing up poor and MORE
On March 10, 2020, First Call submitted comments to the City of Vancouver supporting passage of the motion, “Taking Steps Toward a National Cost-Shared Universal Healthy School Food Program.” Click here to read our comments. We are pleased to hear that the City of Vancouver passed the motion on March 11th. One part of MORE
Early Development Instrument (EDI) data are a long-term provincial indicator of children’s early developmental health and well-being in BC. HELP completed their seventh wave of EDI data collection in 2019, resulting in the publication of new provincial-level data. The resulting report, the BC EDI Wave 7 Provincial Report, summarizes trends and MORE
This week’s BC budget followed through on promises made in past budgets – including the BC Child Opportunity Benefit – but comes up short on new initiatives and investments that would assist children, youth and their families. “We need to invest more in upstream, preventative family supports,” commented Adrienne Montani, MORE
Children who migrate are more likely to live in poverty – across Canada and in the world’s richest nations. A recent study used a population-based cohort of BC children to examine whether income differently predicted the kindergarten to Grade 7 (K-7) literacy and numeracy trajectories of migrant children (economic, family, and refugee MORE
Canada is part of the NASA-led Lunar Gateway program, and the Junior Astronauts campaign will allow Canadian youth to test their skills and knowledge, understand how they can play a role in this important endeavour and get excited about space and science. Activities that are designed for youth in grades MORE
First Call sent letters to federal party leaders this week to echo the Coalition for Healthy School Food’s calls for a universal, healthy school food program for Canada. The letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau asks that the government include the development of a national school food program in the MORE
The regional reports from the McCreary Adolescent Health Survey 2018 are being released over time. They have already posted regional reports for Northeast, Kootenay Boundary, East Kootenay, and Richmond. We encourage you to keep checking the website for your region’s report. In the meantime, McCreary also released the Beyond a Dreamcatcher report, a youth-led MORE
Future Bright is a free Elizabeth Fry Society of Greater Vancouver (EFry) program that helps you access up to $3,200 in free money for your child’s education. This money is free for you to claim for your child and you don’t have to contribute any money yourself. The two programs MORE
CBC’s special investigation into violence in schools began when journalists asked if a national database of student-on-student violence exists, and found the answer to be no. School boards across Canada collect information in vastly different ways, creating a messy and incomplete patchwork of facts and figures. That leaves governments in an unenviable MORE
Since September 4th 2018, BCEdAccess has been collecting parent-reported data on the exclusion of students with disabilities from schools in BC. As of June 2019, they had 492 reports with 3,610 instances where students were excluded from school. They recently launched the final data for the 2018-2019 school year. Of the respondents, 92.9% of the MORE
Early last week, Inclusion BC released a resource called All Means All: Back to School 2019. This resources covers four main themes: All students belong in the classroom All students learn differently All students create opportunities to learn All students have the right to a full day The resource outlines features MORE
This week, the BC Ministry of Education released facts to provide a snapshot of British Columbia’s education system. The numbers are sorted by four themes: enrolment and schools, achievement – six-year completion rate 2017-2018, investments in learning, and capital investments. One interesting statistic is that based on student head count in the MORE
Registered Dietitians from the Fraser Health Population & Public Health Nutrition program recently released a catalogue of nutrition resources for prenatal, infant, toddler, preschool and school-aged populations. You can also access searchable resources here.