Project Overview

The TLC³ Project was a national prevention initiative designed to enhance language and cognitive development in the context of early relationships in children from birth to five years of age. TLC³ refers to three meanings of the letters T, L and C: Thinking, Listening and Communicating; Tender Loving Care; and The Learning Centre. TLC³ was a five year initiative (1997-2002) funded by the Lawson Foundation, a private foundation dedicated to the well-being of young children and their families and administered by the Hincks-Dellcrest Institute in Toronto, Ontario. TLC³ was implemented in seven sites across Canada. TLC³ funding was not intended to establish entirely new programs but rather to support program enhancement of existing community-based child care/early learning programs. Each site evaluated the outcomes of their programming.

The specific goals of TLC³ were to enhance the cognitive and language development of children from birth to five years; to increase the awareness and skills of the families and service providers who participated; to stimulate and facilitate similar activities in the local, regional and provincial communities by demonstrating a range of effective community-based practices and disseminating knowledge derived from the project; and to leave the participating sites with a sense of the importance of evaluating the outcomes of their work as a way of getting the support of policy and decision-makers.