1. Examining Outdoor Play Policies of Licensed Childcare Centres in Alberta
Madison Predy, Valerie Carson, Nick Holt
Faculty of Kinesiology, Sport, and Recreation
University of Alberta
Lawson Foundation- Outdoor Play and Early
Learning Policy Research Symposium
October 25, 2018

2. Introduction Outdoor play has many health benefits for children
In recent decades outdoor play has declined
Childcare is an optimal setting for a large proportion of children to engage in outdoor play
Research has found that when children play outside they move more and sit less than when they play inside
Therefore outdoor play provides children with the well known benefits of physical activity as well as other unique health benefits such as better vision and improved Vitamin D levels
Unfortunately, as many of us know, outdoor play has declined in recent decades. And this is largely due to increased screen time, safety concerns from parents and over scheduling of children’s lives.
However, with more than half of Canadian children under the age of 5 attending childcare outside of the home, childcare centres are an optimal setting for a large proportion of children to engage in outdoor play.

3. Introduction
Canadian childcare is regulated by governments of provinces and territories
Wide variance in outdoor play legislation
Current legislation affords centres the opportunity to implement their own policies
In Canada, childcare is regulated individually by the respective provincial or territorial government
This includes regulations on daily activities such as outdoor play opportunities.
A recent review of provincial and territorial legislation found there is large variation in legislated policies across Canada
Ultimately, Current legislation affords centres in other provinces such as Alberta, the opportunity to implement their own policies, thus creating a wide range of variability in outdoor play opportunities for children across centres

4. Introduction
Policies in childcare centres are modifiable to increase outdoor play
Policies must be put into practice effectively
Some centre policies (i.e. weather policies) may restrict outdoor play opportunities
When looking at centre based policies, research has found that modifying policies in childcare centres can be affective at increasing outdoor play and physical activity opportunities in childcare settings
However, research has found that policies alone does not always mean more outdoor play time. For example, one study found that having a policy for outdoor time actually resulted in centres spending less time outside.
It is therefore important that policies must be put into practice effectively by educators and directors within centres.
It is also important to consider that some policies such as weather related policies may restrict outdoor play opportunities for children in childcare centres. Therefore, finding the balance between safety and outdoor play opportunities is essential within childcare centres.

5. Research Gaps
Duration and frequency of outdoor play time in Canadian childcare centres
Seasonal variation in outdoor play time
Prevalence and composition of written policies in childcare centres
While doing the literature review, I identified numerous gaps in research in this area especially within a Canadian context
Gaps included:
Duration and frequency of outdoor play time in Canadian childcare centres
Seasonal variation in outdoor play time in childcare centres
Prevalence of written outdoor play policies in childcare centres and the specific components within the policy

6. Objectives
Determine duration of outdoor play time in childcare centres in Alberta
Determine prevalence and components of outdoor play policies in childcare centres in Alberta
Examine association between outdoor play policies and outdoor play time in childcare centres in Alberta
Based on previous literature and identified research gaps the objectives of this presentation include:
Determining the daily amount of outdoor play time children receive while in childcare in Alberta
Determining the prevalence of outdoor play policies within childcare and the specific policy components within the outdoor play policies
And lastly examine the association between outdoor play policies and outdoor play time

7. Participants Procedures Methods
Directors of childcare centres in Alberta
218 of 899 eligible centres
Procedures
Recruitment by or phone from a complete list of centres
Questionnaire filled out online via REDCap
Participants included directors of childcare centres in Alberta that had programs for toddlers (19-35 months) or preschoolers (36-60 months).
To date, 218 of 899 eligible centres have completed the questionnaire.
A list of centres was compiled from lists provided by regional licensing offices and the Child Care Look Up tool on the Government of Alberta website
Centres on this list were recruited by publically listed s if available or by phone
When a director agreed to participate they were directed to a fill out a questionnaire on a secure database site called REDCap or by mailed paper copy if prefered

8. Questionnaire Methods Centre Demographics
Outdoor play environment and policies
Adapted from: Go NAP SACC (Nutrition and Physical Activity Self-Assessment for Child Care)- Outdoor Play and Learning Tool
The questionnaire included questions on centre demographics such as: number of children and educators, accreditation status and the size of the municipality the centre operates in.
The majority of the questionnaire focused on measuring various components of the outdoor play environment and outdoor play policies within centres.
The questionnaire was largely adopted from the Go NAP SACC Outdoor Play and Learning Tool from the University of North Carolina
Most questions have been found previously to have acceptable psychometric properties such as inter-rater reliability and test-retest reliability

9. Methods
Outdoor Play: includes any time that children are outdoors playing, including free play and educator-led activities
Total outdoor play time per day
Toddlers and Preschoolers
Winter (December-March) and Non-Winter (April-November)
Written outdoor play policy
Specific components within policy
For this study, outdoor play was defined as any time that children are outdoors playing, including free play and educator-led activities
The study collected information on total outdoor play time per day for
This was looked at separately for toddlers and preschoolers and for the winter and non winter months
The study also asked if the centre had a written outdoor play policy
And what type of policy components were included in their written policy

10. Best Practices Methods Toddlers: ≥60 minutes per day of outdoor time
Preschoolers: ≥90 minutes per day of outdoor time

11. Centre Demographics Results Number of Children Accreditation
Toddlers 0-84
Preschoolers 0-112
Average Total 62.5
Accreditation
Accredited 82.6%
In Process 15.1%
Not Accredited 2.3%
In this first table we can see some important demographic information from the sample of centres.
Centres had largest enrollment of preschoolers and toddlers in their centres. Enrollment for toddlers ranged from 0 to 84 and preschoolers. The mean centre size was 62.5 children when including other age groups.
In Alberta, accreditation of childcare centres is based on standards of excellence that reflect current leading practices to provide high quality child care in addition to licensing regulations.
In this sample approximately 83% of centres were accredited with an additional 15 percent in the process of accreditation. This is similar to the overall accreditation rate in the province of 90%.
Lastly, here we can see the distribution of centres based on the size of the municiaplity the centre is located in. 43.6% of centres were from muncipalities with over 100 thousand people, 45% were from small and medium urban centres and 11.5% were from rural communities with less than 1000 people.
Rural- less than 1000
Small ,999
Med 30,000-99,999
Large 100,000+

12. Results
Median winter: 37 minutes
Median nonwinter: 82 mins
Here we have a graph presenting the reported daily outdoor play time for toddlers in the sample. On the horizontal (X) axis we have the total outdoor play time in minutes. On the y axis we have number of centres. The Blue bars represent Outdoor play time for the winter months of December to March and the Yellow bars represent outdoor play time for non winter months of April to November.
When looking at the the best practice of 60 mins or more per day set by NAP SACC, we see that a small number of centres are meeting this guideline in the winter months. In fact, only 24% of centres are meeting the best practice in the winter.
24% (50/209*) of centres are meeting the best practice of 60 minutes or more a day in the winter months
*only 209 centres had programs for toddlers

13. Results
Median winter: 37 minutes
Median nonwinter: 82 mins
Now if we look now at the yellow bars for the non-winter months of April to November we can see a substantial increase with 77% of centres now meeting the best practice of 60 mins or more per day.
77% (160/209*) of centres are meeting the best practice of 60 minutes or more a day in the non-winter months
*only 209 centres had programs for toddlers

14. Results
Median winter: 52 mins
Median summer: mins
Here we have a similar graph but for preschoolers outdoor play time.
Again, we have the same x axis of total outdoor play time and y axis of number of centres.
For preschoolers, GO NAP SACC sets best practice for outdoor play time as 90 mins or more per day.
If we look at the blue bars representing winter months we see a similar trend to toddlers where few centres are meeting the best practice. For preschoolers only 15% of centres are meeting the 90 minutes or more per day of outdoor time.
However, it is encouraging to see a large number of centres falling close behind in the minute range.
15% (33/217*) of centres are meeting the best practice of 90 minutes or more a day in the winter months
*only 217 centres had programs for preschoolers

15. Results
Median winter: 52 mins
Median summer: mins
In the non-winter months we see an increase similar toddlers where 55% of centres now provide outdoor play opportunities for 90 minutes per day or more to preschoolers
55% (120/217*) of centres are meeting the best practice of 90 minutes or more a day in the non-winter months
*only 217 centres had programs for preschoolers

16. Results 94.9% of centres have an outdoor play policy
Average amount of policy components was 4.8
Policy components were highly variable
When examining the policy characteristics of centres it was found that almost 95% of centres reported having a written outdoor play policy.
Of theses 8 specific policy components and the option for to indicate others- centres on average indicated they had 4.8 of these components.
When looking at policy components we can see that specific components were highly variable. Over 80% of centres had a policy on suitable clothing, safe sun exposure and unsuitable weather. But only 21.6% of centres and 30% of centres had policies on education for families and professional development for educators. We can also see that approx 73% of centres had a policy on frequency of daily outdoor play time but only 57% of centres indicated they had a policy for total daily outdoor time.

17. Results
Overall few associations between policy and meeting best practice for outdoor play time
Centres with a larger number of policy components, compared to less components, had a lower likelihood of meeting the best practice for toddlers in non- winter months (OR=0.83 p=0.04)
Centres that included daily frequency in their policy, compared to centres that do not, had a lower likelihood of meeting the best practice for toddlers in non-winter months (OR= 0.43 p=0.01)
Unfortunately little association was found between policy and outdoor play time for children
2 Variables were found to have significant effects on the likelihood of a centre to meet best practices and those found were in the opposite direction expected.
-First, Centres with a larger number of policy components had a lower likelihood of meeting the best practice for toddlers in non-winter months by a factor of 0.83 compared to centres that had less policy components
-Second centres that included daily frequency in their policy had a lower likelihood of meeting the best practice for toddlers in non-winter months by a factor of 0.43 compared to centres that did not have this policy component
However when analyzed including covariates such as number of children, accreditation status and size of municipality that centre is located in, these were found to be insignificant

18. ? Limitations Bias due to self-report
Overrepresentation of centres doing well in outdoor play ?
Limitations of this study included:
Due to nature of self report measures, the questionnaire was prone to social desirability bias where directors answered questions to make their centres look better and recall bias where directors may have remembered outdoor play time or other practices inaccurately
Also, the questionnaire may have also been completed by more centres that have good outdoor play practices. This may lead to overestimation of outdoor play time and limit the ability to generalize to Alberta as a whole.

19. Conclusions
Children are receiving less than optimal outdoor play time, especially in the winter
Prevalence of outdoor play policies was high but components vary
Having an outdoor play policy was not associated with sufficient outdoor play time
In conclusion we found that children are receiving less than optimal outdoor play time, especially in the winter months
And this is important when we consider that in the winter many children attend childcare during the limited hours of daylight without out the opportunity to play outside after childcare.
We also found that the majority of centres have a written outdoor play policy however the specific policy components within the written policy are highly variable
And lastly, although some negative associations were found, when controlled for covariates, centre based policies and specific policy components were not significantly associated with centre’s meeting the best practices of 60 mins or 90 mins per day

20. Implications
Interventions for increasing winter outdoor play are warranted
Policies must be translated to practice
Legislated outdoor playtime may be necessary
Other factors may be more influential on outdoor play opportunities
From this evidence we can see that interventions and resources are needed to increase outdoor play in childcare centres, especially in the winter months
Outdoor play policies may be insufficient alone at ensuring outdoor play opportunities. This may be due to policies not being put into practice effectively by educators and directors or that current policies are not as supportive of outdoor play as they had intended
Therefore, Legislated daily outdoor play time similar to the legislation in Ontario may be necessary in other provinces like Alberta
Lastly, other factors such as amount of outdoor space, may be more influential on outdoor play time than policies

21. Future Directions
Examine the association of outdoor play time and other variables
Research needed to compare outdoor play time in legislated provinces vs non legislated provinces
Future directions for my research will include examining the association of outdoor play time and other variables such as amount of equipment, amount of space and professional development of educators
In this area, research is also need to compare outdoor play time in provinces where it is legislated compared to provinces where it is not legislated to determine if provincial legislation is more effective than centre based policies

22. Acknowledgements Directors of Childcare Centres Dr. Valerie Carson
Dr. Nick Holt
BEL Lab Mates
Firstly I would like to thank all of the directors of childcare centres who took the time to participate in this study.
I would like to acknowledge my supervisor Dr Val Carson and committee member Dr. Nick Holt for the continual guidance as well as my lab mates
I would also like to thank CIHR for funding me and the Faculty of Kinesiology, Sport, and Recreation at the University of Alberta

23. Thank you!
Madison Predy