About Canada: Childcare

Martha Friendly was educated in the United States, majoring in psychology as an undergraduate, and studying social psychology at the graduate level at the University of Connecticut. Before moving to Canada in 1971, she became involved in child care/early childhood education as a researcher studying the American Head Start program at Educational Testing Service in Princeton, New Jersey. Following her immigration to Canada, she worked on child care research at the Social Planning Council of Metropolitan Toronto. She became a research coordinator at the University of Toronto’s Child in the City program (at the Centre for Urban & Community Studies) in 1978. Martha founded and is currently coordinator of the Childcare Resource and Research Unit. She has authored numerous articles, chapters and reports on child care and a book on child care policy, and participates in several child care advocacy groups.

Susan Prentice is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Manitoba, where she specializes in family, gender and public policy. Her most recent book is Changing Childcare: Five Decades of Child Care Advocacy and Policy in Canada (2001, Fernwood Publishing) She is a long-time childcare advocate and works closely with community groups.