Documenting the urbanistic policy bias in rural early childhood services: Toward a functional definition of rurality

• Published in: The Canadian geographer 2017-09, Vol.61 (3), p.375-388
• Main Authors: Vilches, Silvia L., Pighini, Maria J., Stewart, Mary, Goelman, Hillel
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Access to information; Bias; Canada Health Act; Childhood; Children; Developmentally delayed young children; Diagnostic systems; Disabilities; disability; Early childhood education; Early intervention; Exploration; Financing; Funding; Health services; incapacité; Information dissemination; Intermodal; Intervention; intervention précoce; Mathematical models; Parents; Parents & parenting; planification régionale; politique sociale; Population density; regional planning; Research projects; rural; Rural areas; Rural communities; social policy; Transportation
• ISSN: 0008-3658; 1541-0064
• DOI: 10.1111/cag.12359

Key Messages Current per capita funding models have an urbanistic policy bias. The concept of rurality is undertheorized for social planning purposes. Four key characteristics define rural service barriers: travel time, travel modalities, jurisdictional divides, and per capita funding models. One of the promises of the Canada Health Act is portability—the principle of equitable access to health services wherever you live. Services for young children in northern and rural communities are structured with a one‐size‐fits‐all funding model that inadvertently disadvantages lower population density areas. We use a socio‐cultural approach to explore the barriers to access to rural early childhood services. With data from two research projects that each covered diverse rural contexts, we focused on service providers’ and parents’ experiences in accessing early intervention and early development programs and services for children with typical development, and those with developmental delay and/or diagnosed disabilities. The results affirm the value of rural and small town life and provide information for developing a more effective rural service delivery model for families with children with typical and atypical development. We demonstrate the way providers and parents make rural services work through “relational functionality.” Parents and service providers rely on key community agents to help organize and innovate collaborative solutions to address lack of access to information, intermodal travel demands, and administrative divides. In short, we confirm an urbanistic policy bias in the per capita funding model. Découvrir le parti pris urbain de la politique des services de la petite enfance en milieu rural : mise en place d'un cadre fonctionnel de la ruralité La transférabilité est un des principes de la Loi canadienne sur la santé en vertu de laquelle l'accès équitable aux services de santé est garanti, peu importe le lieu de résidence. Les services offerts aux jeunes enfants dans les collectivités rurales et du Nord sont conçus selon une approche universelle de financement de type invariable qui désavantage par inadvertance les zones de faible densité. Une exploration des contraintes aux services de la petite enfance en milieu rural est menée dans une perspective socioculturelle. En partant des données obtenues de deux projets de recherche qui portaient sur un ensemble de régions rurales, nous avons sondé des fournisseurs de services et des parents sur leurs ex