Our Past Projects

Following the success of Bright Beginnings, an eight-part Better Together podcast series exploring the essential elements of high-quality early childhood education, BT is proud to present Beyond the Podcast: a new webinar series launched in 2025 and designed to take a deeper dive into the topics introduced in the podcast series.

Join us as we explore themes including inclusion, the vital role of early childhood educators, the upsides of risky play, and more!

Published in 2024, Bright Beginnings is an eight-part Better Together podcast series that explores the essential components of high-quality early childhood education and highlights the critical role of the ECE workforce in shaping young children’s development across Canadian municipalities.

Recorded in March 2025, The Special Needs Resource Models in Ontario Municipalities Webinar explores different special needs resource models, the challenges and barriers faced, and key lessons learned from the field. Produced by Better Together with hosts Michelle Schurter & Dr. Emis Akbari.

Produced in 2023, "Early Learning is Economic Development" highlights Economic Development leaders across Ontario who explain how investing in early learning and child care is fundamental to prosperous economies. Produced by Better Together & Workforce Collective.

Led by Dr. Emis Akbari & Kerry McCuaig, Knowing our Numbers was a vital initiative that captured the voices of nearly 6,000 early childhood education professionals across Ontario. These dedicated educators have shared their insights with passion—highlighting the state of their profession and the impact on the children in their care. Their perspectives are essential in shaping a stronger, more responsive early learning & child care system for families across the province.

From 2022-2025 Better Together has offered peer-to-peer leadership networks for Service Systems Managers and Municipal leaders. Groups are dedicated to professional development and peer-to-peer mentorship within Early Learning & Childcare (ELCC).

In 2023 Better Together teamed up with Edge Factor to create The Early Childhood Education Badge which is designed to teach and inspire students in K-12 to consider what a career in Early Childhood Education can look like!

In 2023, Better Together members came together to produce a FAQ video to support Better Together's work surrounding New Narratives. The FAQ video is designed to ignite public understanding of the role of Service Systems Managers and the profound impact of early childhood education.

ELCC Design Labs were a series of design thinking workshops hosted in 2023 that brought together community leaders from across Ontario to ideate solutions to the 'big messy problems' facing ELCC today.

In 2025 Better Together Members hosted a booth at The Economic Developer's Council of Ontario.

Better Together hosts a pre-conference workshop and panel discussion at The Winter 2023 Economic Developers Council of Ontario Conference & Tradeshow.

The Economic Developer Council of Canada's Conference was hosted in Kingston, ON in Fall of 2022. Better Together was pleased to host a panel discussion and workshop on the benefits of economic development and childcare leaders working together.

A joint initiative between Better Together & The Atkinson Centre at The University of Toronto, Lowering the Bar - How Reducing Childhood Educator Qualifications Threatens Childcare, was a policy brief prepared by Dr. Emis Akbari & Kerry McCuaig highlighting the need for qualified ECE's in Ontario.

In 2023, Better Together partnered with Workforce Collective to develop regional Child Care in Crisis briefs. The project produced documents that included key facts and data on the workforce situation locally in various Ontario municipalities.

Produced in 2023, The Merrily podcast was supported by Better Together with the goal of changing the way we talk about early years education by taking an upstream-downstream approach. Merrily puts early years educators in conversation with thought leaders in the field (upstream) and encourages those outside the early years to think about how the learning in these earliest stages of life is critical for all citizens today and tomorrow (downstream.)

In 2023 Better Together was proud to receive The Local Municipal Champion Award at the OMSSA Exchange Conference