Programs and Activities CMAS Resources

New Online Tutorial: 4 Tips for Building Confidence in Newcomer Children

To support their settlement and growth, immigrant and refugee children need supportive relationships, a safe space, and opportunities to nurture and build their confidence and competence. Need opportunities for mastery, success, and “safe risks”!  In 4 Tips for Building Confidence in Newcomer Children, participants will learn about how to incorporate opportunities for mastery, success, and “safe risks” in their programs, some of the ways we unintentionally stifle children’s feelings of competence, and simple strategies to incorporate important learning opportunities that build confidence and support children’s development. To extend your learning, you’ll also find a list of resources, facilitator guide and group discussion questions so that you can easily facilitate your own team training.


Tips for providing opportunities for mastery and success for young refugee children

English: Tips for providing opportunities for mastery and success for young refugee children
French: Conseils pour fournir aux jeunes enfants réfugiés des occasions de maîtriser leurs habiletés et d’avoir du succès

Tips for creating a safe space for refugee families

English: Tips for creating a safe space for refugee families
French: Comment créer un endroit sécuritaire pour les familles réfugiées

Tips for helping refugee children understand and manage big feelings and challenging behaviours

English: Tips for helping refugee children understand and manage big feelings and challenging behaviours
French: Conseils pour aider les enfants réfugiés à comprendre et à gérer leurs émotions fortes et leurs comportements difficiles

Loose Parts

Loose Parts presented by Carolyn Hadcock

Supporting The Settlement Of Young Immigrant Children And Their Families, by Julie Dotsch is now available online!

Written by child care and diversity expert Julie Dotsch, with strategies and ideas from caregivers working in the field of newcomer child care, "Supporting the Settlement of Young Immigrant Children & their Families" builds on caregivers’ professionalism, knowledge and experience to provide a greater understanding of the new immigrant and refugee experience from a child’s and family’s perspective.

Leaping the Learning Curve: Five HR Practices that Improve Child Care Administration

Your role as administrator is one of great responsibility—especially as it involves a program that cares for children. However, the human resource function, which can be a full time career in other industries, is usually just a part of the child care administrator’s workload. Finding the time to get up to speed, not to mention locate child care specific resources, on all the HR aspects of administration can be near impossible. Read More

Mentoring for Personal and Professional Growth with Glory Ressler

Here is the first of four workshops from the 2011 Professional Development Conference for LINC Childminders. Mentoring is a powerful vehicle for personal and professional growth. Glory Ressler, from Mentoring Pairs for Child Care project, facilitates a fun and informative exploration of what mentoring is, and ways to apply mentoring.

View the workshop

Six Reasons to Love Your Job!

If you work with immigrant children,

1) You are leading the way in a growing professional field!


Canada welcomes 250,000 immigrants each year, including over 8,000 children and youth, speaking over 80 different languages. You work with these families each and every day. When there is a crisis in another part of the world, and refugee families arrive here in Canada, for many of them, you are their first contact!


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Creating a “climate of delight” while children learn: Dr. Rachel Langford

Play is important to learning. Research tells us again and again that when children play, exploring and experimenting with material, they learn through those experiences. Dr. Rachel Langford offers some strategies to create a "climate of delight" while children learn.Read More