This rare book lets child care directors across Canada speak to us directly about the vision of full inclusion of children with special needs, the challenges that their vision has faced, and some of the strategies and techniques each has used to survive. The portrait is not all victory, and the future is not assured. Irwin is able to compare recent conversations with visits she made to those same child care centres ten years earlier. The result is evidence-based storytelling and an accessible book that will be of particular value to practitioners, directors, government decision makers, parents and people in related fields.

The author of six books on the inclusion of children with special needs in Canada, Dr. Irwin is Director of SpeciaLink, the National Centre for Child Care Inclusion.

"This is the story that needed to be told!" Donna S. Lero, Jarislowsky Chair in Families, Work and Well-Being, University of Guelph.

For more than 25 years Irwin has dedicated her efforts to children with special needs. The founding director of SpeciaLink – the National Centre for Child Care Inclusion. She is an advocate for young children with special needs and their families, locally, regionally and nationally, serving on numerous commissions, working groups, task forces and committees.

Sharon Hope Irwin's profile page