Effects of COVID-19 pandemic, affordability crisis showing up in child development data, experts say

JoAnna LaTulippe-Rochon doesn’t need to see data to know it’s been a difficult few years for people, including children.

At the Cape Breton Family Place Resource Centre where LaTulippe-Rochon is executive director, she and her colleagues are seeing lingering effects from the COVID-19 pandemic and increased needs driven by factors such the high cost of housing and food.

“It used to be that most of the families that we were seeing struggle were families on income assistance,” she said in an interview.

“But at this point we’re certainly very well aware that even one to two people in the workforce is not protecting people from not being able to meet those basic needs.”

All of these challenges create vulnerabilities that a new report shows continue to be present in some children as they enter the school system.

The Nova Scotia government recently released the 2022-23 results for the early development instrument, or EDI, a research tool that looks at a child’s ability to meet developmental expectations in five categories as they enter school: physical health and well-being; social competence; emotional maturity; language and cognitive development; and communication skills and general knowledge.

The most recent numbers show 28.5 per cent of Grade Primary or kindergarten students in the province were vulnerable in at least one of those five categories, up from 25.5 per cent in 2019-20. The percentage of children vulnerable in physical health and well-being, emotional maturity and communication skills and general knowledge were all notably up from the 2019-20 results. There was continued improvement in language and cognitive development from the last report.

Jessie-Lee McIsaac, a Canada Research Chair and associate professor in Mount Saint Vincent University’s faculty of education and department of child and youth study, said the trends are to be expected because students covered by the report had reduced access to child care during the pandemic.

Those early years have been shown to be formative in the development of a child as they prepare to enter school. EDI numbers can predict which students might struggle later in life without interventions and support.

“We’re sort of at the same stage we were a few years ago and I think that tells us that this is a group that we need to continue to pay attention to in terms of the potential long-term impacts that development has for their long-term health and wellbeing,” McIsaac said in an interview.

She and her team are researching the effects the pandemic had on children’s development, research that showed some parents struggled to balance work and parenting needs during the pandemic.

But like LaTullippe-Rochon, McIssac said that’s only part of the equation. Child poverty rates, equitable access to services such as child care and parental supports, and the cost-of-living crisis can all play a role in the development of a child, said McIsaac. Her team is looking at those factors, too.

The provincial trend for the EDI results is largely playing out the same way at the regional level.

Only two regional centres for education — Halifax and Cape Breton at 26.3 per cent and 26.8 per cent, respectively — have vulnerability rates below the provincial average. But even they are higher than where they were in 2021.

Vulnerability rates are above the provincial average for:

Education Minister Becky Druhan said officials in her department are still reviewing the numbers, but she’s not surprised to see rates of vulnerability increase following the pandemic.

Druhan said the challenge for her department is to determine how to meet children’s needs so struggles can be promptly addressed. Those efforts include collaboration with counterparts in the departments of Health and Community Services, she said.

Although she has confidence in the team at her department and the teachers working with children each day in schools, Druhan said they need to review the allocation of resources.

“There is always a live question of, ‘Are we using those resources in the right ways, are they deployed in the right ways,’ and we do continue to need to ask ourselves whether we may need more resources,” the minister said in a recent interview.

Nova Scotia Teachers Union president Ryan Lutes Lutes said, for most teachers, it comes down having enough staff to work with children who need it.  

“Whether that’s smaller class sizes, more teachers to help support those children kind of in smaller group settings, but there certainly are gaps and I think overall if students have more needs then there need to be more supports if we’re going to actually help those students,” he said.

In Cape Breton, where EDI results have been stronger than most regions despite higher levels of child poverty, LaTulippe-Rochon said service providers focus on getting support to families close to where they live so as many children as possible have access to advantages that can help them prepare for school.

“I think we have a real high sense that it’s going to take all of us working together to make a difference.”