Human Resources and Skills Development Canada's (HRSDC's) Understanding the Early Years (UEY) Initiative aimed to enhance communities capacity to support young children and their families. This was to be accomplished by developing and using quality local information to foster community mobilization and to make informed, collective decisions on concrete actions to enhance children's lives as well as building on the strengths of existing local approaches to support young children and their families. The objectives of the evaluation were to assess the impacts of the UEY Initiative in participating communities and to identify lessons learned using the UEY model.