An Inquiry into the Mental Health and Well-Being of Early Childhood Educators Who Have Worked within the Contemporary Ontarian Early Learning and Child Care Context

In Ontario, well-being is considered a foundation for learning and living well alongside young children (Ontario Ministry of Education, 2014), yet, pursuing well-being of early childhood educators (ECEs) is under-valued and under-studied. Previous literature has demonstrated inadequate working conditions and compensation for ECEs (e.g., Flanagan et al., 2013; Langford et al., 2020), who experience poor well-being, globally (Blöchliger & Bauer, 2018; Wells, 2015; Whitaker et al., 2013), yet adequate well-being in Quebec (Royer & Moreau, 2016). This study is the first inquiry into ECE’s well-being in Ontario and utilized thematic analysis to analyze the data from 15 interview transcripts. The results suggest that well-being reflects the relational work within a stressful sector, with little acknowledgement for the intensity, autonomy over work, and access to meaningful support. Unexpectedly, educators described their well-being as a relational negotiation between self (agency, identity), and other (connection, relational stress, alignment). Supporting the everyday life challenges and significantly adverse events of ECEs remains a pursuit for future research (Corr et al., 2017).