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Early childhood development - This priority was identified and developed under the National Children's Agenda (NCA) document negotiated between provincial and federal governments in 1999/2000. In support of this initiative, the federal government has agreed to contribute $2.2 billion for early childhood development over five years, beginning in 2001-02. This initiative will provide better access to services such as pre-natal classes and screening, pre-school programs and child care, parent information and family support, and community supports.

Electronic advocacy - The process of using communication and information technologies to disseminate information and mobilize support from a large constituency to help influence decision-making processes.

Emotional abuse - Emotional attacks or omissions that cause, or could cause, serious emotional injury. This could include behaviour of parents or guardians who persistently do not take an interest in their child. For example, not talking to or hugging their child, and being chronically emotionally unavailable to their child. This could also include repeated threats, confinement, repeated exposure to violence, ongoing humiliation and ridicule, and fundamental attacks on a child's sense of self.

Employment equity - All Canadian provinces and the federal government has equal employment opportunity legislation in place, usually as part of their human rights codes. This legislation prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, age, religion, nationality and sex. Employment equity legislation, designed to help women's employment and promotion opportunities, was not introduced in Canada until the 1980s.

Employment Equity Act - The purpose of the Employment Equity Act of 1986 is to ensure equity in the workplace so that no one is denied access to employment for reasons unrelated to merit and skills.

Empowerment - The sense that people can create and take action on their own behalf to meet their physical, spiritual and psychological needs.

Equal-pay policies - During the 1950s and 1960s, every Canadian province enacted legislation requiring equal pay for similar or substantially similar work. During the 1970s both Quebec and the federal government introduced pay equity legislation that required equal pay for work of equal value (allowing comparisons between occupations). In the 1980s, most other jurisdictions followed suit, at least with respect to public sector employment.

Ethical dilemmas - In the course of their work, social workers are inevitably confronted with situations in which the policy and regulations of the agency conflict with what they, as experienced social workers, see as being in the best interests of their client. As well, the standards and ethics of the profession may be inconsistent with an agency's procedures and practices. Balancing one's beliefs, professional standards and agency rules can be difficult.

Ethnic group - A social group that has a common cultural tradition, common history, and common sense of identity and exists as a subgroup in a larger society. The members of an ethnic group differ with regard to certain cultural characteristics from the other members of their society.

Ethnicity - Ethnicity, from a Greek word meaning people, refers to a group of people who share a common heritage, identity or origin. Isajiw defines an ethnic group as "an involuntary, community-type group of persons who share the same distinct culture or who are descendants of those who have shared a distinct culture and who identify with their ancestors, or their culture or group" (Isajiw, 1999).

Ethnocentrism - An attitude that one's own culture, society, or group is inherently superior to all others. Ethnocentrism means an inability to appreciate others whose culture may include a different racial group, ethnic group, religion, morality, language, political system, economic system, etc. It also means an inability to see a common humanity and human condition facing all women and men in all cultures and societies beneath the surface variations in social and cultural traditions.

Eugenics movement - Over the years, thousands of people with disabilities (most often intellectual disabilities) were sterilized. This policy was in line with the now widely discredited eugenics movement, advocated by the Fascists in Nazi Germany among others, which was based on the notion that careful planning through proper breeding is the key to a bettering society.

Evaluation/termination - The final step in the social work process, in which the client and the social worker have worked together to assist the client to achieve a resolution to the original problem.

Extra billing - Extra billing is an extra charge levied by the physician beyond the negotiated or scheduled rates set by the provinces.

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