Windsor Essex Registered Early Childhood Educators
Recruitment and Retention Campaign

Windsor Mayor Drew Dilkens and City Children’s Services staff visited Connections Early Years Family Centre today to promote the Windsor Essex Registered Early Childhood Educators (“WERECE”) recruitment and retention campaign.

The campaign, WERECE, a local initiative launched by The Children’s Services Department, is a workforce strategy for child care and early years to bring awareness of the important role that Registered Early Childhood Educators (“ECEs”) play in the life of a child and our community. It is being promoted to recruit and retain ECEs across Windsor-Essex in child care and early years’ programs and to bring a sense of pride to those working in the field.

The work is funded by the Ministry of Education through the Canada-Ontario Early Childhood Workforce Agreement, a Provincial and Federal collaborative initiative which seeks to sustain, enhance, grow and attract staff into the child care and early years’ workforce. The demand for the ECE workforce has been enhanced by the Canada Wide Early Learning and Child Care (CWELCC) agreement focused on increasing the accessibility and affordability of child care through the reduction of daily childcare costs and the creation of 86,000 new child care spaces. CWELCC has reduced daily childcare costs by 25% in 2022, with an additional 37% reduction in January 2023.Due to these changes the province of Ontario has estimated that there is an immediate need for 8,500 ECEs and an overall need of approximately 15,000 by 2026.

Quotes:

“I want to acknowledge the importance of ECE’s for families within our community. Your dedication and contribution to the field of Early Childhood Education is incredibly valuable to families and communities across the country. The collaboration between the City of Windsor and Connections is an example of one of the strategies we use to support current educators in the field and encourage others to join the ECE workforce.” - Mayor Drew Dilkens

"Across the Province, there are staffing shortages in child care and early years programing and with the influx of new child care spaces we are in need of even more. In a Windsor-Essex context, each of the 186 child care and EarlyOn programs are in need of additional qualified staff. Our goal through this campaign is to sustain, enhance, grow and attract a high quality child care and early years workforce for Windsor and Essex County."- Andrew Daher, Commissioner of Human and Health Services

"The WERECE campaign is focused on empowering, engaging and enhancing the ECE workforce across our region. The first five years are critical to the development of a child; as early childhood educators we nurture their development and growth through guided play and self discovery, giving them the tools they'll need for success in everything they'll do. The campaign serves to highlight that Registered ECEs are qualified, creative, dedicated, and in demand."- Dawn Bosco, Manager of Children’s Services, Human and Health Services