Programs - Understanding the Early Years
Understanding the Early Years
Family Services of Central Alberta (FSCA), in partnership with Red Deer Catholic and Red Deer Public Schools, was successful in a proposal to complete a project which looks at how kindergarten children and their families are doing, and how our community supports children in their early years. The project began in May 2007 and runs to March 2010 with Walter Lidster representing FSCA as the recipient agency and Laurie Lafortune as the project coordinator. A working group of interested community members acts as an advisory body to the project.
The early years are critical for a child's development, shaping long-term outcomes related to school achievement, employment success, health and quality of life. Understanding the Early Years (UEY) is a national initiative, funded by Human Resources and Social Development Canada (HRSDC), that engages members of the community to work together, using research to enhance approaches aimed at helping young children to thrive. UEY provides communities with a means to collect information to better understand the needs of young children and families, enabling communities to make decisions about programs and services to meet those needs. HRSDC has been funding local UEY research projects since 1999, when the pilot phase began. Twelve pilot community projects were completed. The national initiative, which was launched in 2004, has 36 community projects. We are part of the final cohort of UEY projects, one of 16 sites across Canada and the only UEY project in Alberta.
The Red Deer UEY project focuses on the child population from birth to six years old. The three-year project carries out community-based research and identifies resource and service gaps, with the broad goal of strengthening the community. Ultimately, parents, community leaders, teachers, advocates and agencies will work together to use the research to improve decision-making on children's issues. Specific activities of the UEY project include:
- Compilation of an Inventory of Community Programs and Services for Children 0-6 (completed March, 2008)
- Completion of a baseline Community Mapping Report (completed March 2008)
- Completion of the Parent Interview and Direct Assessment of Children Survey (PIDACS) on a sample of 2008-09 kindergarten students and their parents (completed December, 2008- Report expected Fall, 2009)
- Completion by teachers of the Early Development Instrument (EDI) on Red Deer's kindergarten children (completed April 2009)
- Identification of Red Deer's socio-economic characteristics, using 2006 Census Data (completed May, 2009)
- Completion of community resources maps and census maps (completed June 2009)
- Completion of a Community Research Report
- Production of a final Community Mapping Report
- Production of a Community Action Plan.
Red Deer residents are fortunate in many ways with a variety of programs and services for children and families, and active community networks and coalitions. Through research and collaboration, the UEY project will complement existing activities and projects to benefit Red Deer's children and families.
For further information, please contact:
Laurie Lafortune UEY Project Coordinator
Phone: 403-309-8224 Email: llafortune@fsca.ca
Map to FSCA
