The Power of Advocacy: Elevating Early Childhood Education with AECEO

[MUSIC] Get ready to reunite your passion for early childhood education. I'm your host, Marcin Nicole, and welcome to Be Inspiring EC&E Podcast. Our goal is to build community where you feel inspired and motivated to be the best version of yourself. So join us as we dive into the world of early childhood education together and reunite that fine, that brought you into this profession. As an educator, I know how challenging and rewarding the field can be. And that's why I created this podcast. We'll explore the latest trends and challenges faces in the field. We'll have expert guests and webinars and provider workshop coaching and mentorship programs that will help guide you to your ideal work life balance. So join us as we dive into the world of early childhood education together and reunite that fire that brought you to this profession in the first place. So let's get started. Hello and welcome to another amazing episode of The Inspiring EC&E Podcast. I'm your host, Marcin Nicole, and today I am super, super excited. We are here joined by amazing guests from the AECO, the Association of Early Childhood Educators of Ontario. This is a great opportunity for all of us to just hear about how we can take part in advocacy here in Ontario. So let's get into today's episode. I'd love to start by having all of these wonderful educators introduce yourself. So tell us a little bit about who you are, what your role is at the AECO, and what led you to do this important work. Who would like to start? Sure, I can start. So thank you so much for inviting me to participate today. My name is Justama. My pronouns are they them. And I have been an RECE for almost 15 years working with young children. And in the last few years, I was able to join the Association of Early Childhood Educators as a community organizer. And I think that I would probably pinpoint my advocacy journey as starting as a middle child. So when you have an older sister and a younger sister, what ends up happening? You kind of got to learn how to advocate for yourself. So that's one of the things that I think made me also kind of create my own identity apart from my older and younger sister. And while that might seem a little bit strange as pinpointing that as the time, I think that these are the moments and these are the situations that actually define us. So while that was one situation, I think that that ends up snowballing into the way that I approach work. The way that I approach working with young children, especially, is supporting them and finding their identities. So I think that my advocacy journey really started and continues to be on that road of supporting other folks in finding what's important to them, finding what brings them joy, finding what will support them in their everyday life. I know that we can often think of advocacy as this huge task and a worldwide movement and things that are much bigger than ourselves. But in truth, it's actually the everyday and the ways in which we make our decisions every day. So I think that I've been fortunate to be able to consider myself and my situation through the lens of someone who adores being around children and gives me a lot more freedom to think about relationships, think about how I move through this world because I'm not so confined to what an adult norm is. So my advocacy journey was really supported by being able to work with children and really valuing that perspective. Oh, that's amazing. Thank you so much for sharing that, Jess. Erin, would you like to go next? Tell us a little bit about you. Sure. Uh, hello, my name's Erin Filvey. I use, uh, she, her pronouns and I am the other one of the community's reorganizers for the AECU. How did I become an advocate? I feel like it's one of those things I've had in my guts for a very long time. How I became a child care advocate is a slightly is a slightly different story. I didn't know I wanted to be an ACEE until I had a kid and I was wandering down the road with my neighborhood with my toddler and my chubby dog and an ACEE leaned over a fence and was all like, hey, you want to come in here? And I was like, who, who was? Yes. And the ACEE was Miss Fatima and she explained that the program she was running was the Parenting and Family Literacy Center, which was a precursor to the early on. And she said, you know, come tomorrow. And so I dressed myself and my kid up like we were going to a job interview. We turned up and Miss Fatima's room was just the most life-changing space. I'm right like right from the start. I mean, you know, access to ACEs and access to kind of the early years is always life changing, but this is right life-changing like instantly right from the start. I got to this room that wearing ACEE had been deliberately creating community with her hands and the sense of, the sense of belonging, the sense of oh yeah, I can just be here. I can come here to learn, but I don't have to come here to learn. I'm allowed to be here just as I am. And so is my toddler. It was life changing for me like instantly. And you know, by the time I by the time I'd hang out at Miss Fatima's class for a couple of months, I was like, oh, well, I want to be an ACEE when I grow up. And I was 34. Me, 32. And so I went back to school to do ACEE, but I did not have childcare. And so I fell in with a bad crowd or an excellent crowd of folks who were doing their placements in the childcare advocacy organizations. And they let me come and speak in an event about what it was like to be trying to do to do my ECE diploma without childcare. And it was wild. What I was terrified. My papers were rattling. And I was terrified right up until it was over and then it was great. But as I was finished, there was somebody else who was all like, yeah, me too. I don't have childcare either. And that feeling of not being alone, of being able to like not feeling like it was my entirely my own fault, it was just it was like having a weight lifted off my shoulders. And you know, when the Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care sort of asked me if I would do something else. I was like, yes. And then they asked me if I would do something else. And I was like, mm-hmm. And then I just sort of never left. And so that kind of, you know, I was in advocacy circles and other stuff that I was doing around, around kind of learning organizing skills and teaching organizing skills came together in a bit of a perfect storm. And I've been working at the ACO for five years. And it's been, it's been the best and most fulfilling work I've ever done in my life. It's extraordinary. And I love it. These stories are giving me goosebumps. I love how your journeys are all different and brought you to this platform of advocacy. Thank you so much for sharing that. And Patricia, would you like to share your story with us? Thank you so much, Marcia. I'm Patricia Vorsas-Noguera. I use she/her pronouns. I'm a registered early child educator. I am a journalist and I work as the communications coordinator at the Association of Early Child Educators of Ontario. And my journey has some similarities with Jess's and Aaron's and I'm sure with yours too. It's a little different. I became an ECE by AxeVote. I came here from Brazil as an international student in the EC program and that was my choice because I was like, okay, I work with children as an English as a foreign language teacher. I know I love working with children and I know that there will be jobs because I wanted an immigration path, right? In the in the almost 10 years since I've done this, immigration, the economy, the sector, so many things have changed. But at the time, it seemed like a sure way for me to become a permanent resident one day. And I was on my second placement with preschoolers and I had the moment that I was like, did I accidentally find my calling? What is happening here? Because it was just I had a really, I struggled a lot with my first placement. I think a lot of people do special international students. It was my first winter. I got hand-footed mouth disease as an all the things, all the things, right? And then I went I got to the second placement and I was with those preschoolers and felt more confident in my skills and had a better rapport with the staff. I was like, I love doing this. I love doing this. I thought that I was going to get my PR and figure out what I wanted to do after. But what I want to do is just to be able to do this. I want to be an ECE. I want to be with preschoolers. I get chills just thinking about it. I'm sorry. And second placement finished. I worked at that childcare center for a long time after during the summer, second semester started and I went into my fourth placement in January 2017. Feels like forever ago, but then you do the math. It's not that long ago. It's kind of nuts. And that placement was at the Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care, which at the time we had physical offices and everything and the ACO and the OCBCC and the DCBCC all shared one tiny teeny office that would not fit all of us now. And that placement changed my life because I had that moment of like I had my mentors a placement sit with me and explain the context of early learning childcare, explain how undervalued, how systemically undervalued and underfunded and under respected and under appreciated we are. And I had that moment of like I just spend my life savings in this plan to have a career that I'm not going to be able to make ends meet. I move to a new country with the hope of if I have a family one day, we're going to have a better life. And then realize the shock of like, when you graduate, you're probably not going to make a living wage. And that broke my heart. It changed my life because that heartbreak has been the driving force behind what I do. I worked on the floor. I worked on the floor through the pandemic. I did. I have, I lived that dream of working with preschoolers for a very short time. And what brings me to advocacy, what brings me to do this work to connect with other educators, to connect those dots of like, we do the most important work in the world with little to no resources, with little to no appreciation, with little to no visibility. And I know in my heart with all my body, with all myself, that this is the most important work in the world. Carrying for children, caring for their families, caring for one another is the only way we're going to survive. So my driving force is the stubbornness of knowing that ECEs are awesome. Of knowing that early learning and childcare could be the best job in the world, the most magical, but that there are systemic issues that are getting away. And I've made it my life school, maybe we'll see. For now, my life school is to change that, to, I find as hard as I can to change that. Speechless. Absolutely speechless. Listen to, I can feel the advocacy and the passion just pouring out through your voices. And the three of your stories were absolutely amazing. We've got brand new educators coming into the field every day with no idea what advocacy is or even how it could start. So share with us what are some simple steps that brand new educators can take to get started on their advocacy journey. Aaron, let's start with you. I love this question because a lot of the time we think about advocacy is being something that happens with other people. That's something that other people do. They stand in front of Queen's Park or they stand in front of Parliament Hill and they hold a sign. And sometimes there's funny slogans on the sign and they march and they chant. And that is what advocacy can look like. And yes, sometimes advocacy looks like that. But that's not how advocacy starts. And how advocacy starts is with something the ECEs do innately brilliantly. And that is how conversations they share what they care about. They ask people to care with them. They let people be interested and involved. They bring people with them in caring about the things that they care about. And that is, ECEs are the best people in the world. I mean, ECEs are the best people in the world full stop. But ECEs are the best people in the world I know for having these caring and open conversations that are the absolute foundation for advocacy ever. Nothing happens without a conversation that says, "I care about this. Do you care about this too?" So the easiest way that you can start to be an advocate is to think about what you're experiencing, whether it's a good thing, whether it's bad thing, whether it's hopeful, whether it is something that you're grappling with and to talk to somebody else about it. And to talk to them about it with vulnerability, with care, to invite them to care about you. Maybe that is your peers. It should definitely be your peers. Your family, maybe the families that you're working with, you've been working with, to be able to start a conversation that says, "This is what I'm experiencing." And here's how I feel about it. Is the most foundational act of advocacy. It's also the easiest way I know to make stuff some incredibly good ECEs chums. And I find your people and have those relationships that start with honesty and that start with vulnerability and that start with what you care about. I mean, those relationships are, that's how the good stuff starts. So, yeah, the first step before you pick up a marker to make a sign is to have a conversation about what you care about. Excellent. Oh, thank you so much for sharing that. That was great. Jess, would you like to add to that? Yeah, I think Aaron has this phrase that I absolutely love and it's "care out loud." And that is something that I think, like Aaron said, is so innate to ECEs and childcare workers that our cares are so generous with our care. We aren't ashamed to be soft and to be a place where folks can feel safe. That's actually our strength. And so, it's one of the few skills of that ECEs have that are not always given to themselves. So, I think as one of my tips for being a really great advocate is to sustain yourself. And so, one simple thing that I would say is all of that care that I know you're so generous with, that I know that you give to children, families, to your community members, to your family members, that you afford yourself that same care. And that your expectations for that care be also that high. Because what you're putting out in the world you also deserve for yourself. So, I would say that's my number one big, big tip is that you are part of the community. You are part of this world and that we need people like you to be able to sustain your efforts as long as possible. And the only way that's going to happen is if you give yourself the same treatment that I know that you're giving other families and children. And one other thing that I would say is that we have a lot of, yeah, I don't know what the way to say this is like we have some street cred in society. As nice people, as kind people actually, not nice, kind people. So, you have a little wiggle room to be a little, for belly is sometimes, to stand up for things that perhaps others may not be able to. So, I think use some of that cred when you can, like Aaron said, when you're going to those rallies and you're marching along with those folks, that's still very much carrying out loud. And you don't need to worry that by breaking the mold and having a little bit of descent is going to, you know, tarnish any of your reputation or any of your cred as an, as an easy year as a child care worker. In fact, it will move the movement even further. So, use up that credit that you have in terms of society. You deserve it. You deserve to make take up space and you deserve to be loud. Oh, excellent listeners. I really hope you are taking notes and getting into these juicy nuggets about how simple these steps can be. But Patricia's going to give us her insights on that as well. I love talking about this. It is my entire work. I am actually right now opening the ACO social media because I know I've written about this on our social media. It was actually part of our summer campaign this year was to highlight that EC skills are efficacy skills. skills knowledge and experience that we gain from working with young children and their families are key for advocacy and for a community organizing because advocacy community organizing is bringing people together. It's building relationships. It's making those connections and easy to know how to do that better than anybody. I know I am biased when I say that it is the best job in the world that it changes lives not only when you are receiving that care but when you are providing that care because caring for young children that are not related to you changes the way you look at children care loving families being able to build that relationship that you care about their universes changes the way you look at families. Even if we don't realize that in our day to day, but the other thing that I will say to not be repetitive because there would be a lot of what Jasmine Erin already mentioned is that I know it's hard to take up space. I know it's hard to take up space. When I look at my journey as an EC as an advocate as a person, the older I get, the more mature I get, the more skills I get, the more confident I get. I know that it's really hard to bring the conversation about pay, about working environments, about the challenges that we face in the sector. It's really hard to talk about that because you don't want to go to the families that you work with and just go, hey, did you know that I'm not being paid what I'm worth? Unfortunately, we have barriers that keep us from having those conversations. And it's really hard. People find it easier to advocate for the children, for the families. Let's advocate for the children. Like Jess was saying, when we care for ourselves, that is advocacy. When we advocate for ourselves, that we're advocating for children, for families, for communities. There's a lot of talk about quality in early learning and childcare. And quality is directly related to the quality of life of the person providing that care. If I have to have three jobs to make ends meet, the care I'm going to provide to the toddlers is not going to be the same. If I have to be worrying about, oh my gosh, I have to go and find stuff for my program on my own dime and on my own time. And finish the program when I get home because I don't have paid plenty time. I have to go into work sick or take a sick day with no pay because those guarantees are not there. It's really, it's really hard to talk about those things, but we don't start with that conversation. We don't start with, hey, did you know I'm not going to be paid for that. I'm not paid what I deserve. What I deserve. I might start with that 'cause I've already gone off the deep end, but it starts with talking about why we love what we do. It starts with talking about why we want to keep doing it. So many, I am one of them and I know that there's more. So many ECEs are forced out of a career they love because they cannot afford it. Whether it is because salaries are low or because it's so sustainable to not have paid sick days. And that's not fair. We want every child and every family to have access to a Miss Fatima. We want them to have access to an ECE that can come with all the energy and all the love and dedication and passion that they have into that work. That's what we want. So we know when we are able to have these bigger conversations and look at the bigger picture, we are, it clicks with us. At least it has for me and for many people that I have in my life to be like, okay, I care about this and no matter how things are framed, you cannot tell me that me fighting for ECEs having better jobs is going to be on the wrong side. That's never going to be it. Amazing. And you said something that's just stuck in my head and resonated with me, and which will be a perfect segue to our next question is sometimes we're afraid, sometimes we're taken back or just afraid to be taking up that space. So how does the ECE support educators in their professional growth and advocacy efforts? We do that in many different ways. We do it in the ECE way, which is we kind of hide those skills that we might be hesitant to talk about, those topics that we might be hesitant to talk about in fun things. When we, when we, like for example, today is November 19th, tomorrow we have a rally at Prince Park. We're preparing for the rally with giant parachutes, noise makers, colorful signs, like our work, even though we talk about really serious things and we're talking about life changing policy work is also really fun. And it's really, we don't lose the childhood, the respect and the love and the appreciation for childhood and childlike things just because we left the floor. So we do some of our, like the summer we had an advocacy event that was a craft and chat. Folks joined us to talk about what was going on in the sector and show us the crafts that they were working on. And it's amazing to see how ECE's if they're given the space and the safety to take up that mission of speaking out for the profession of speaking out for their needs. They blossom. Oh, absolutely. Thank you for that, Erin. Could you share your thoughts with us? Maybe Jess, you'll talk a little bit more about the communities of practice too, but I think that one of the things that the ASEO does incredibly well is keep the care really front and center in everything we do. The idea that we're caring for each other, the idea that joy is strategic, that it places where we can be joyous together or when we can't manage joy when things are tough and sometimes things are really, really tough where we can hold each other up, that spaces where we can carry each other's emotions and let that load be a little heavier between shared between other people who understand is really important. And that's been happening in lots of different ways. But the main way I think that we're able to offer that is through the communities of practice. Do you not call communities of practice anymore? They're called care collectives, which is a name change that I feel in my soul. It lives in my heart. I love it so much. So our groups are called care collectives and they let people be in touch with each other. They let people come together and talk about what's important to them. They let people act together in non-scary ways. So it's much easier to think about how you're going to pull your MPP if you are doing it with five of your buddies and they're singing in cake and bulked. There's these, creating these opportunities for people to be together in joyous ways and recognize the advocacy that is in the soul of that is one of the things that I think the ACO does incredibly well. Jess, you have something face. (laughs) - You're here with us. - I just want to say what you're describing and I think at the end of the day, the ACEs are world builders. You have access to a space and you curate it, you plan it, you're strategic in the pictures on the wall, the colors of your decorations. It's all meant to build a world in which a young person can thrive and flourish. And I think that same sentiment is what the ACO is meant to do and there's many ways in which they do it, like Aaron said in Patricia said, it could be on the policy side where we send in, you know, our policy expert, Olana to a government table or they are advising on a national level, this the 10-day childcare plan. It's also Amber going to a class chat at a post-secondary institution. Again, in that little bit of time that we have, maybe an hour or maybe even half an hour that we have, we're meant to build a world in a time and a space in which those students in that particular classroom have the floor and their perspective is centered. So that's really what the ACO tries to do is create these spaces in which we build a world where ECEs are prioritized, their opinions are validated and also encouraged to reach their self-determined potential. We aren't here to be creating cookie cutter ECEs. We wanna create the ECEs that you want to be. And there's many outlets for that, including professional development, which was just so thoughtfully curated and the space intentionally made to itch the brain of an ECE and a childcare worker. It's specifically made to have you thinking and this is something that Safa Najimadine who is the previous professional learning coordinator says is to cook and you have an idea and that's what we're gonna give folks is the idea, but you cook it in your own way. You cook it in the experiences that you've had previously in the community that you belong to and the region of the world in which you live in, maybe previously lived in, lying to live in, but you cook that idea and we trust you because you have that training, that expertise and the prioritization of a better world. And you are able to then take that and use it to support yourself. So whether it be with a session that we have that's about crafting and community or it be a rally at Queen's Park, all of those are intentionally built to support an ECEs participation, not necessarily a powerful person in which society deems as powerful or the expert in this. No, AECO is specifically building worlds for ECEs to thrive in and flourish. Similarly, those same principles that we use for the children and their families in our care, we're offering that to ECEs and child care workers in Ontario. - All right, my wonderful listeners. If you did not hear that message loud and clear, I'm going to say it again. The AECO is here for you. They're here to support early childhood educators on a grand scale. I'm sitting here as a person that has started a podcast for advocacy so I can connect as many educators as possible. Again, advocacy is small steps, but these are big changes. And this organization is here for you. Absolutely 110% here for you. Care, love, support, guidance through your professional growth and your advocacy efforts forever and always. Sorry, soapbox. Anyway, next question from your perspective. Why is advocacy so vital to early childhood education today in the here and now? I'd like to go first. - Okay, perfect. - I'm going to jump on that one because this is something that I fully believe. This is a moment in history that is unique. We're on the heels of a nationwide $10 day child care plan. We have educators and child care workers being trained at a level that has never we've not seen before. Their expertise and their knowledge about the early years is unmatched in history. And then also we have a societal reality in which everyone is working. Everyone is working and child care is vital to supporting the places that we live, right? So I think that all of these things coming together at the same time, we are so well positioned to make gains that we've never seen before. I know that there's maybe an inclination to be frustrated with the fact that we are sometimes saying the same things over again. Perhaps we're talking to the same people about the same issues that we did five years ago or 10 years ago, but one of the most impactful things that we did recently at the AACO was do a little history trip. And we looked at the organization and where it's been from 10 years ago, 20 years ago, all the way to 50 years ago. And when you line it up and you really do look at the progress that we've made, we are way further than we perhaps give ourselves credit for. And that just, to me, reinforces the idea that we could actually go further and faster. So I think that at this particular moment, all the stars are aligned to taking our power back and utilizing it in a way that, on apologetically, [BLANK_AUDIO] There's no excuses for it. There's no justifications for it. We don't need that. We know it already. And this is probably one of the first times in history in which the validation from outside forces who maybe prioritize things like capital funding, money, you know, maybe even, you know, historically male perspectives. We have the potential here to do something different and the folks in our movement are so well positioned to take that torch and just run with it. So I think at this particular moment in history, we really do have a lightning strikes moment that we could maybe make a lot of movement in a shorter time. Aaron, share your thoughts with us. I think, I think, yes, Jess, you're absolutely right. There is this incredible potential because we've never had this moment before and we've come so far in a handful of years. Less than a handful of years, we have started to build a system that if we do it right, if we do it right right now, will be here for like not just not just this next generation of educators who are who are qualifying. But their children and their grandchildren, we can have a system that that outlasts us and that is incredible, but it has to be built on foundations that are strong and foundations that don't leave room for one group of folks, profiting or having advantage over others that bring everybody into a system that bring parents and unite parents and families and educators and these incredible not for profit providers and has them on the same page and caring about each other. And we can absolutely build a system that will that will be there for our grandbabies. Should we be lucky enough to have them. And it I think anybody who watches the news, anybody who sees the news accidentally at the bus stop knows that the world can be scary. Right now as a person who cares really deeply about many things, including you know humans and children and women and trans folk and queer folk, I afraid I am afraid about a rise of hatred. I am afraid about what the next few years could look like and that fear the only antidote I know to fear and to hatred is care like it's the only it's the only way we win. You can't hate people to make them hate you less and it's complicated and it's hard, but we know the impact of care. We've seen the impact of care on tiny humans on ourselves on educators. We know it's the only way we win and I think we can. I think we can. So yeah, care is the answer it turns out to everything. Oh, absolutely. And Patricia, your thoughts. I think the question was why do we think advocacy is vital. I think you used that word right, Marcia? To me advocacy is vital because I have first an experience of only surviving because of advocacy. Advocacy has brought me community. It has brought me hope. It has brought me solace. It has brought me people who believe in the same things that I do. People who believe in me even when I don't people who say to you, hey, it's not that you're not a good ECE. It's that we are undervalued and under appreciated and under resourced everywhere we go because for a long time I blanched myself. Oh, I'm not working hard enough. I'm not dedicating myself enough working 45 hours a week, 15 of those and unpaid. How is that not working hard enough? How is an ECE who works 730 to 9 and then 330 to 6? Right. And advocacy allows allows me to have these fears to sometimes lose my mind a little bit with them and go to a real dark place. But it also allows me to hope and it allows me to dream because the way things are right now, those were all decisions that someone made someone said, hey, it's a great idea to put five toddlers to one adult in a 15 toddler room, 10 toddler room. Right. Like, oh, that's a great idea. Have you ever met a toddler? Have ever met them in a pack mentality? Right. Like the ratios were not decided by science, by nature, by needs. They were decided by policy policy that was made by people who know nothing about children who know nothing about the experiences that we go through in child care as early child educators. So if that was a choice, we can make a different choice. Right. We, Aaron and Jess already spoke about the 10 a day child care plan and it's changing lives for families, for educators. And it feels sometimes I think like hearing Ontario, we get we're not able to see how life changing a universal child care system could be because it's not the rollout is not going as well here as it could be. Right. Right. And that is part of why we do the work we do and might seem like, oh, here come those child care people again talking about decent work, professional pay, blah, blah, blah. But this is how we got to the universal child care system. It wasn't given to us. It was 50 60 years of advocates of educators of parents families grandparents fighting for this right now. It doesn't seem like it's going to be because it sounds oh Patricia you're so idealistic. This is going to be the answer to all our problems. No. But at the same time we have to start somewhere it feels like really slow progress because we're in the middle of the tornado right now if I'm not making the wage that I deserve that that allows me to live a healthy life. If I am understaffed if I am having to call a supply every day because our centers under like understaffed all the time it's impossible to be able to see the long term. But at the same way that now we can't think of a reality where every child doesn't have a spot in elementary school that the same thing could be true for child care. The same way that elementary education and secondary education is a right is universal is guaranteed that can be the same thing for early learning for child care. And with that guarantee comes better jobs. It comes policies that protect us policies that ensure that early child educators and child care workers are being taken care of. It takes a really really long time for these things to be a school board for things to be a school system. It takes a long time to build things we have not before the healthcare system was the way it is now we didn't have that it's hard for us to think about that but I like I think about and with green cables and how they like in the in the show they showed them like going to the little tiny house you have school. That was the reality then going to school now even in rural areas doesn't look like that anymore child care is not going to look like this it doesn't have to look like this working in child care doesn't have to feel like this forever we are fighting so that maybe I wasn't able to retire as a preschool EC but I am fighting for a system that EC is can be doing their job on the floor and they're like you know what I want to go back to school to learn more and come back. To work with these families and with these children because so many of us are looking at furthering our education as a way out because we're burnt out that's not fair. It's not fair for us to be giving up our careers giving up our dreams giving up the things we love so that's why to me I think it's his vital and for survival and I see Aaron is very excited. Yes Aaron share with us. I was just thinking that Patricia yeah it takes ages it takes ages for us to have created a health system when one didn't exist before and how much we've done. It's been 10 years and how fast it has happened with the energy with the idea of this being a system that serves serves us and must serve families must serve educators is such a I can't imagine any other system implemented this effectively this fast. And I say that because you took people who cared about people and who care about very deeply about people and what they had to scramble together with not quite enough resources and a lot of confusion and often sitting on a Friday night just being like I don't know what to do with this funding formula. But they did it and they did it with care and decency as their as their core values and that's why we have what we have so fast and it's been hard for folks. I know it's been hard for folks and and we see you we see how hard you've worked and we see how hard you're going to keep working and that you are prepared to keep working to make sure this works because it matters to you. It matters to you. It matters to all of us and they couldn't have found a better crew to build a system like this or people who would care more about it. So where it's working now it's working because of educators because of the talk our folks. Amazing amazing as you can see we could be here for hours talking about this topic absolutely hours with this panel of lovely guests. But before we wrap up this episode please share with the audience how they can get in contact with the AECO how they could join and share your last final thoughts for you. want to be. Let's start with Jess. Sure, so listening to this podcast is great as a first step. If you're already listening, you can check that off your list because you've already done the first step. But as we talked earlier, again, about the care collectives, if you don't know much about them, I suggest you go on to our Instagram, scroll through it, and you'll see how many different ways and entry points, like one of the things we talk about is, I don't know if a lot of writers even the right word anymore. But we used to call it a ladder of engagement, and it's maybe a more of a menu, a menu of engagement. Any in which way that you're able to read an article here, maybe like a post there, it all counts. We don't need you to have any sort of formula in which you engage with our work. It's whatever speaks to you and whatever can support you. So I think the first step would be thinking about what you need right now and what it is that could possibly help you sustain yourself in this field and then cruise the Instagram and see if any of those things speak to you. And then that would be the first step. And the other thing that could be really quick is, who are your people? Finding who it is that you rely on maybe after a bad day. What do you call? Who do you maybe vent to? Do you have someone that you not even if it's a bad day? What about if it was like a, for example, I had one day where I was super, super excited because this one child who notoriously loves to take the hats off of every other child's one day. Hey, man, just said, I'm not going to do it anymore. I won't do that anymore. And that whole day they didn't take any hats off of other kids. Who else can share that joy besides another child care worker? So who are your people that you can say that to and they'll look at you and share that excitement and share that sense of accomplishment? And yeah, so who are your people and make sure you keep them close to you? And Aaron, share with us your final thoughts. Yeah, Jess, I love the, I love you that you brought up. What do you need right now? Because really, what do you need right now? If you need novelty, then we have some extremely fun things. Going on on our Instagram and the kind of various days of action. Do you need people? Do you need to feel belonging? Then probably one of the care collectives. And even if you sideline and don't say anything, you're still welcome. If that belonging is what you need, if you feel fired up, if you are ready to like kick bombs and take names, then there are things that you can do tomorrow. And anywhere, time in the next 10 days for the week of action, there are tasks and there are missions for you. And there are also spaces to just belong. And I would say I'm going to throw it over to Patricia because Patricia is in lots of ways the sort of the face that people meet first about the AECA. So yeah, find us. Which a little bit good luck if I'm the first one you're meeting, depending on the day I might not make any sense because I'm too excited. Okay, so you hear the four of us talking and we're talking about advocacy. We're talking about passion. We're talking about why we do this. The four of us have done this. This is not our first day. When you step your toes into advocacy, you're not going to be speaking the same way. You're not going to be presenting yourself the same way. You're not going to be thinking the same way. You're not going to be approaching it the same way. The more we do this work, the more we connect with other people to talk about it, the easier it gets. The more natural it comes to you. When I like at the beginning of the podcast I mentioned, I did a placement with the OCEBCC and there were many moments that I kept thinking I'm never going to be able to be an advocate for childcare because I can't be calm, collected, and eloquent like Carolyn Ferns. But that's one way of being an advocate. And with the ears, with the exposure therapy of like, "Yeah, you're going to talk at a rally." "Yeah, you're going to talk in front of the camera. We're going to do it." We get better. And it's like I was saying before, it's the thing that keeps me saying it's the thing that keeps me alive is to be able to have this community. If you have never heard of the ACO, I'm going to ask you to go to your favorite social media platform and follow us. I am going to ask you to go to AECO.ca/podcast to listen to the first episode of "By the Time this episode comes out, maybe we'll have more." Because Marcia has a pro at the podcast game now. So the turn around might be faster. But we started a podcast called "Circle Time with the ACO" to try to create the space of belonging for ECEs wherever you are. Listen, you can listen to Jess Raycho and myself chatting about why we want to do this, why we believe in this work even further than we did here today. So I invite you to listen to that first episode. I invite you to check us out on social media if you're able to become a member. ACO membership funds this work supports us to keep going and to sign up for our email updates. We are trying to connect. If you are an ECE in Thunder Bay and you're trying to find community, that community might be right next to you, but you also might find community with someone in Windsor. And that's what the ACO is here for. We have no physical office. We are squares on a Zoom all the time, but that allows us to get to people wherever they are. And we want the changes that we're seeing in early learning in child care, the 10 a day program, and other developments we have in last few years to be the tide that lifts all our boats. When ECEs became part of the school boards, we were able to gain the prevention wage enhancement for ECEs in child care. They're both connected when we when we ask for a wage grid for child care workers and for ECEs for the wages of our ECEs to start at $30 an hour, $35 an hour, that would impact ECEs in the school board. We want every single person working with children and families to have a healthy, thriving life, not just survive, not just get by. And that's that's why we do what we do. Come with us. Wow. What an incredible conversation. A huge and heartfelt thank you to Aaron, Jess, and Patricia from the AECO for sharing your time and expertise and your passion with us. Your work that you're doing is truly transformative, and I know our listeners have gained as much insight and information in this discussion as I have. To our listeners, if you want to learn more about the AECO, or connect with the organization, and get involved, all the information will be available in your show notes. So be sure to follow them on social media and stay up to date in all the latest initiatives and resources provided by them. And before we wrap up, please don't forget to like and subscribe and leave a review on the Inspiring ECE podcast. It helps us reach even more educators who are making a difference. So thank you again to my wonderful guests. I appreciate all of you for your time and sharing your expertise. And until next time, keep inspiring. And that's a wrap for today's episode of the Inspiring ECE podcast. Thank you for joining us. We had a blast and we hope you did too. Remember, this is your community and we want to hear from you. So connect with us on social media at Ispire to educate. Visit our website at Ispiretoeducate.com and also send us an email. All the details will be in the description or the show notes. And don't forget, we're here to support you through your educational journey. So subscribe and tune in for future episodes. And let's continue to inspire and support each other to the best versions of ourselves. Until next time, have yourself a great day. (upbeat music)