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ECEs as Innovators
“Let’s try it out!”
Social Innovation in Atlantic Canada’s ECE Sector
ECE professional practice is highly compatible with the iterative test-and-learn cycles of innovation design. Every day, ECEs work with children in responsive, adaptive ways — trying out new ways to support their care and learning, gathering feedback from the children, and making adjustments to their environment and interactions. Participants in the ECE Lab applied this iterative approach to the sector’s systemic challenges around recruitment and retention of the ECE workforce. They created eight social innovation prototypes that offer new ways of addressing these challenges. Supported by embedded design coaches, each prototype was field tested and refined, and now all prototypes are offered here for use by anyone in the ECE sector.
Explore the insights and prototypes created in the Lab on this page. Then download a prototype action pack and try it out in your community.
ECE innovators in Atlantic Canada
Provincial teams from New Brunswick, Newfoundland & Labrador, and Prince Edward Island each worked with an embedded design coach to create, implement, and evaluate a prototype of a social innovation to address ECE workforce challenges explored in the lab.
ECE Lab round 1
New Brunswick Anglophone team
Caroline Noel Munn
Educator – Cedar Brook Early Learning Centre
Kari Sprague
Operator – Cedar Brook Early Learning Centre
Clare Archibald
Director – Anglophone East School District EECD
Janice Sutherland
Association Rep and Operator – Home with a Heart Early Learning Centre
Heather Fowler
Academic Chair
NBCC
New Brunswick Francophone team
Isabelle Fournier
Operator – Au p’tit monde de Franco
Renay Martin-Landry
Propriétaire et éducatrice à la petite enfance at Centre Éducatif Le Platinum à Dieppe
Sandra Guitard
Operator – Garderie aux p’tits amours Inc.
Lise Maillet
Early Learning Centre Coordinator/Early Learning Consultant
Danielle Gauthier St-Onge
Specialist – Développement et apprentissage 0-8 ans GNB
Newfoundland and Labrador team
Bernadine Kent
Operator/Educator
from Astros Infant
Care Centre
Tanya Pardy
Program and Policy
Development Specialist Early Learning and Child Development Division Department of Education
Trudy Cuza
Program and Policy
Development Specialist Early Learning and Child
Development Division
Department of Education
Skye Taylor
Executive Director –
Association of Early
Childhood Educators
Newfoundland and
Labrador (AECENL)
Lori Caulk
College of the
North Atlantic
ECE Manager
Prince Edward Island team
Jacinta Andrews
Educator – Little
Wonders Early
Learning Centre
Elizabeth Jeffery
Operator – Little
Wonders Early
Learning Centre
Monique McLean
Education and Lifelong
Learning Early Childhood
Development
Jennifer Nangreaves
Executive Director –
Early Childhood
Development
Association of
PEI (ECDA)
Susan Ashley
Holland College
ECE Lab round 2
New Brunswick Anglophone team
Linda Gould
Project Coordinator
NBCC
Jewell Mitchell
Consultant
EECD
Nivin Elmorsi
Operator
MCAF ELCC
Shawnee McConchie
Owner Operator
Wonderland Child Care
Sharlene Jackson
Owner Operator
Wonderland Child Care
Kate Flanagan
Acting Director of Early Childhood Development
EECD
Heather Fowler
Academic Chair
NBCC
New Brunswick Francophone team
Vicky Fraser
Director
Service de
garde L’Envolée
Marie-Pier Caissie
Director
Petits Passereaux
Carole LaValley
Associate Dean, Early
Childhood
CCNB
Jonathan Nowlan
Instructor
CCNB
Céline Cormier
Early Learning
Consultant
EECD
Newfoundland and Labrador team
Pamela Pike
Operator/Educator
Early Learning Centre
Coralee Burton
Administrator
Early Learning Centre
Delisa Farwell
Consultant
Newfoundland Government
Sandy Gow
PL Coordinator
Association of Early
Childhood Educators
Newfoundland and
Labrador (AECENL)
Skye Taylor
Executive Director –
Association of Early
Childhood Educators
Newfoundland and
Labrador (AECENL)
Mary Linehan
Instructor
College of the North
Atlantic
Lori Caulk
College of the
North Atlantic
ECE Manager
Prince Edward Island team
Kim Gillis
Holland College
Instructor
Megan McPhee
ECDA
Professional Learning
Coordinator/Assistant
Executive Director
Jaime-Lynn Mosher
Rainbow Beginnings
Owner / Operator
Monique McClean
Education and
Early Years
Manager of Early
Learning and Child Care
Kati Smallman
Wee the West
Owner / Operator
Maddy Jeffery
Mighty Oaks
Educator