Children’s Services Customer Success

Children’s Services (formally Alberta Children’s Services) focuses on early intervention, child development and delivering supports and services to children, youth and families. The ministry engages with Indigenous leaders and communities, the Government of Canada and other Government of Alberta ministries, community agencies and other stakeholders.

The Child Care Orientation Course is a non-credit course that reviews aspects of early childhood development and the role of a caregiver.

The Challenge

Alberta legislation requires that all childcare employees in licensed childcare facilities possess a Level 1 – Early Childhood Educator Qualification Certificate. To make the Orientation Course more accessible to all Albertans and to increase enrolment, ACS elected to offer an online version of the course.

Employees and course participants, including new Canadians with English as a second language, often work in the childcare sector as initial jobs. This is typically an employee base with high turnover.

The Alberta Government was looking for an organization that could support the program in the following areas: curriculum design and ongoing management, delivery, and instructor support. They were also looking for the ability to track and report on thousands of users on an annual basis.

The solution

The SkillBuilder Team converted 54 hours of classroom learning content into 18 eLearning modules for online delivery in English and French. The course was expanded to include two new video-enhanced modules in response to concerns from the Government of Alberta and the childcare professional community.

The Alberta Government uses a customized version of SkillBuilder^® LMS to deliver the program. All registrations, learning activities, evaluations and instructor support is provided through the LMS.

Additionally, the SkillBuilder Team provides program management and instructional support for Child Care Orientation program participants.

The results

Since going live June 1, 2008, more than 14,000 learners have successfully completed the program. The SkillBuilder Team continues to support the online delivery of the Orientation Course, most recently completing a major update to the course content in 2019-2020.