Summary

The Multicultural Health Brokers Cooperative and the Community-University Partnership, supported by the Edmonton Council for Early Learning and Care, partnered to gather first-hand accounts of ethnocultural parents’ experiences securing early learning and care for their children in Edmonton.

These organizations engaged with parents from Bhutanese, Chinese-speaking, Eritrean, Ethiopian, Filipino, Kurdish-speaking, Somali, and Spanish-speaking communities. The Report amplifies these parents’ voices by seeking to bridge cultural differences and work collectively to produce change.

Practice & Policy Implications

• The stories shared in the Report illustrate some of the challenges ethnocultural families face accessing childcare, while demonstrating a strength-based approach centred on cultural capital.
• These stories help to demonstrate mutual respect between cultures, modeling practices rooted in equity and belonging.
• The Report’s illustrated personas and stories model a unique and engaging approach to highlighting newcomer experiences in an accessible way.
• The Report’s modeling of interculturalism has implications for the entire early learning and child care sector in Edmonton and beyond.

Image credit: Sam Hester