Collaboration with municipalities

Municipal actors—whether elected officials, directors or professionals—play a crucially influential role in setting up favourable conditions to ensure families’ and young children’s quality of life. As such, it is important that municipalities collaborate very closely with other actors in the community. Moreover, municipal initiatives aren’t limited to early childhood development only but can extend their reach over longer and sustained periods of action.

Constructing a safety net together

To ensure that these collaborations produce results, the municipal actors need to participate alongside the other relevant actors in the reflections and the strategies that lead to the construction of a safety net in support of families’ quality of life. It goes without saying that a solid understanding of how municipalities function paves the way for more productive collaborations with the intervention workers implicated in this network. A whole range of aspects and factors need to be taken into consideration if we want to be able to contribute to the decisions made at the municipal level in Québec’s cities and villages.

Favourable conditions for setting up effective collaborations

Different authors have identified a list of favourable conditions for collaborations or partnerships. These conditions apply to any project that can benefit from the input of representatives from different networks, such as those that focus on cultural life, healthy lifestyle habits, school retention, or child development.