On March 15, 2023 the wage grid research team presented in an AECEA Connect session to share their recommendations for a wage grid for Alberta ECEs and for the next step will be engaging with ECEs, program owners/operators, and stakeholders. To be involved with the engagement, please complete an expression of interest at https://aecea.ca/form/wage-grid-engagement-expression-. Further details on the research team and their recommendations are below.
A post-graduate research team, supported by the Community-University Partnership (CUP), the Evaluation Capacity Network (ECN), and the Edmonton Council of Early Learning and Care (ECELC) in partnership with the Association of Early Childhood Educators of Alberta (AECEA), has been conducting community-engaged, qualitative research on a compensation framework for early childhood educators of Alberta.
Over the past few months, the aim for the team has been to create a values-based wage grid recommendation focused on professionalizing the workforce and ensuring experience, education, and training are embedded in the grid. This presentation will show the wage grid recommendation and highlight the journey to creating the grid.
The post-graduate research team includes:
- Mary-Frances Smith, a master's student at the University of Alberta in Community Engagement. Her research uses a qualitative, community-engaged approach to understand workforce stability in the early learning and child care sector. Partnering with AECEA, her research is supported by Community-University Partnership (CUP) and the Evaluation Capacity Network (ECN) and funded by SSHRC and WCHRI. Through this research, she hopes to reveal the complex nature of ECE’s experiences by examining their motivations to enter and remain in the sector, give voice and agency to their hopes and struggles, and provide policymakers with frontline solutions as we build a system of ELCC. The wage grid recommendation is the focus of the pan-Canadian post-graduate research team.
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Miranda Brown, a master's student at York University in Development Studies and a research assistant at ECELC. Her master's research uses data from the Canadian Health Measures Survey to make regional comparisons of biomonitoring data collected from 2009-2019. She has been working on research and advocacy for the ELCC sector since May 2021. With a focus on economic well-being and human development indicators, since the summer of 2022, Miranda has been a part of a pan-Canadian research team working on a wage grid for early childhood educators. The wage-grid project is a partnership with AECEA, supported by Community-University Partnership (CUP) and the Evaluation Capacity Network (ECN).
- Abhiroop Saha is a Master of Public Health Student at the University of Saskatchewan. His focus in the program is to learn more about social determinants of health, health promotion, Indigenous health, and effective leadership and communication strategies. He is currently a research assistant with AECEA and is collaborating with the Evaluation Capacity Network (ECN) and Community-University Partnership (CUP). His research is focused on creating a values-based wage grid for early childhood educators with the goal of increasing workforce stability and retention in the early learning and care sector. He hopes to work in collaboration with community partners and members to reach effective and thorough solutions.
To view the research team's written recommendation report, go here.