More than any other time in history: a majority of Canada's children are growing up in child care settings.  Like other of the world's richest countries, Canada is engaged in a unprecedented child care transition.   UNICEF's Innocenti Research Centre Report Card 8 on child care finds that among developed countries, almost 80 per cent of three to six-year-olds and 25 percent of under threes are in some form of early childhood education and care.  Even children under the age of one are being increasingly cared for outside the home. Here in Campbell River recent studies show that our families use child care more than the Canadian average.

At the same time, neuroscience has demonstrated more and more vividly that stable, secure, attuned relationships with a primary caregiver are critical to early development and have life-long implications for health and well being.

These twin developments have the potential to greatly benefit of harm young children - it all depends on how society responds and what standards of care are put in place.