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Understanding the Early Years

Understanding the Early Years (UEY) is a national initiative that enables members of communities across Canada to better understand the needs of their young children and families so that they can determine the best programs and services to meet those needs.

The focus of UEY is community capacity building using local information on young children. The broad objectives of UEY are to:

• Strengthen the capacity of communities to use quality local information to help them make decisions to enhance children's lives; and
• Enable community members to work together to address the needs of children.

The Initiative provides members of participating communities with quality information on the readiness to learn of their kindergarten children; family and community factors that influence children's development; and the availability of local resources to support young children and their families. Parents, teachers, key decision-makers, and others interested in the well-being of children in each community can then work together to address issues identified by this information.

UEY aims to involve children from all backgrounds including Aboriginal children (which generally applies to First Nations, Inuit and Métis), children of new immigrants, children in official language minority communities and children in disadvantaged circumstances.

For further information on the UEY initiative, please see:

• UEY Communities 2005
• An Update of Early Childhood Development Results in Four Canadian Communities
• Overview of Understanding the Early Years
• Understanding the Early Years Terms
• Pilot Program Reports
• Related Documents and Reports
• 2006 Call For Proposals Documents