Understanding the Early Years: Discerning a Response System

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Understanding the Early Years Discerning a
Response System

• Linda L. Nosbush
• Community Research Coordinator
• Prince Albert Pilot Site

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City of Prince Albert Looking South
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Wapaweka Sawmill Prince Albert Northern Boreal
Forest
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The Virtuous Circle
Prosperous Society
Innovation and Competitive Workforce
Social Stability
Resources to Fund Programs that Foster Healthy
Child Development
Healthy Children and Adolescents
Healthy Child Development
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A Web of Protectionenables the development of
courageous human beings who not only survive but
thrive.
Healthy babies, healthy children, healthy
communities, strong nations The Unbeatable
Combination
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Determinants of Health, Well-being and
CompetenceSocial Determinants of Health

• World Health Organization
• Social class health gradient
• Stress
• Early Life
• Social Exclusion
• Work
• Unemployment
• Social Support,
• Addiction
• Food
• Transport

• York University
• Income and its distribution
• Early Life
• Education
• Employment Working Conditions
• Food Security,
• Health Care Services
• Housing
• Social Safety Net
• Social Exclusion
• Unemployment employment security

If we continue to ignore these broader policy
issues,promoting healthy lifestyles and
increasing spending on medical care are unlikely
to succeed in maintaining and improving the
health of Canadians. Dennis Raphael, 2003
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Socioeconomic Gradients
desired
problematic
Literacy Level
Socioeconomic Indicator Parents Level of Education
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Socioeconomic Gradients

• The pattern wherein risk increases in a stepwise
  fashion as one descends the socioeconomic ladder
  is known as a gradient and once established it
  tracks across the life course (Hertzman, 2002)
• Steep gradients give important clues as to
  whether a society is supporting or undermining
  the development of its populationsteep gradients
  are associated with overall poor outcomes in
  comparisons among countries or regions (Keating
  Hertzman, 1999)

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Socioeconomic Gradients

• Indicate causal relationships
• Are influenced at various levels of social
  aggregation
• Are evident for all major diseases and
  competencies that affect health and well-being
• Even when major diseases change, the gradient
  replicates itself
• Point to fundamental biological processes
  connecting Socioeconomic Progress to human
  resilience and vulnerability, to disease, and
  strongly suggest a role for early childhood
  development
• Are expressed over the entire life course but
  they appear early in life
• - Hertzman 2000

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Socioeconomic Gradients

• Early Childhood Development initiates gradients
  in health, well-being, and competence throughout
  the life course according to three processes
• Latent Effects
• Pathway Effects
• Cumulative Effects
• Social Exclusion has many forms and sometimes it
  can occur when there are no distinguishing
  features features evident one of the most subtle
  forms emerges early in life when the child is in
  the process of becoming and it shapes
  childrens readiness to learn at school
• If our physical and social environments, and the
  institutions that govern them, systematically
  limit the chances of some groups of children to
  develop as fully as others, then this too is a
  form of social exclusion (Hertzman 2002).

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Community Influences on Child Development
PARENT
COMMUNITY
Current
CHILD
Past
POTENTIAL INFLUENCES
OUTCOMES


Physical
Social


Emotional


Language


Cognitive



Communication
Learning
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Five Developmental DomainsEarly Development
Instrument

• Physical Health and Well-being
• Social Knowledge and Competence
• Emotional Health and Maturity
• Language Cognitive Development
• Communication Skills General Knowledge

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Readiness to Learn
Of 621 children

• 71 of our children lack the Physical Health and
  Well-being
• 62 of our children lack Emotional Maturity
• 65 of you will lack Social Competence
• 69 of you will lack the Language
• and Cognitive abilities necessary
• 53 of you will lack Communication and
• General Knowledge Skills

151 of our children lack readiness to learn in
one domain 86 of our children lack readiness to
learn in two or more domains.
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Examining Readiness to Learn ScoresAcross the
Distribution Our goal is to have all children
ready to learn when they enter school but alas
that is not so..
Children who will readily adapt to school the
transition will be negotiated with little or no
support.
Children who will have problems adapting to
school.
Children who are at-risk for adapting to school.
Children who are above average in their ability
to adapt to school there will be a transition
but they will make it easily.
Children who are below average in their ability
to adapt to school but with support will be able
to do so.
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Early Development Instrument Percentage of
Children Who Lack Readiness to LearnIn the
Prince Albert Area
These neighbourhoods have many children who lack
readiness to learn at school.
These neighbourhoods have most children ready to
learn at school.
Vulnerability Cut-Off - All things being equal
10 of the children would fall into the bottom
10 for the study area as a whole.
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Early Development Instrument Percentage of
Children Who Lack Readiness to LearnIn the
Prince Albert Area
These neighbourhoods have many children who lack
readiness to learn at school.
9 schools have more than 30 of children who lack
readiness to learn
These neighbourhoods have most children ready to
learn
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• Children who lack readiness to learn
• In one domain
• 2000 23.8
• 2001 24.4
• 2003 24.3 (151 children)
• In two or more domains
• 2000 12.3
• 2001 14.9
• 2003 13.8 (86 children)

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If we have only one start in life Let it be a
strong one!
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Building A Framework for Understanding

• We are responsible for
• Opening doors
• Ensuring that these doors stay open
• Helping children to walk through these doors
• Being a role model for children
• Helping children to develop a sense of a
  brighter future

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Safe Start and Healthy Start
Physical Health well-being

• Physical Readiness for School Day
• Physical Independence
• Gross and Fine Motor Skills

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Connected Start
Social Competence

• Overall social competence
• Responsibility respect
• Approaches to learning
• Readiness to explore new things

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Sensitive Start
Emotional Maturity

• Prosocial and helping behaviour
• Anxious and fearful behaviour
• Aggressive behaviour
• Hyperactivity and inattention

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Smart Start
Language Cognitive Development

• Basic literacy
• Interest in literacy/numeracy memory
• Advanced literacy
• Basic numeracy

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Smart Start
Communication Skills General Knowledge

• Communication skills and general knowledge

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The New PovertyHaberman, Harvard, 1993

• Todays poverty is unlike that of the past.
  Children experiencing the new poverty face the
  following
• Growing up without adults they can trust
• Living in communities where violence abuse of
  human beings is high
• Experiencing feelings of despair and lack of
  hope
• Witnessing their familys inhuman treatment from
  the bureaucracies that were established to help
  them
• Resigning themselves to a state of
  powerlessness, being at the whim of some other
  authority outside their families.

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Our Recommendations to Change the Outcomes for
Our Children

• Four Pillars of Response
• Collaboration
• Human Capital based on lifelong learning
• Social Inclusion
• Program Evaluation, Monitoring Research

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Prince Albert has been busy

• National Presentations
• Province of Alberta
• Senate of Canada work on National Plan of Action
  for Children (in response to the United Nations
  A World Fit for Children
• Local Presentations
• Food Security Policy (in principle)
• Integrated Nursing Program with University of
  Saskatchewan
• National Publication for Vanier Institute for
  the Family - Transitions
• Action Planning Day

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Service Integration

• Joining of forces, knowledge and means
• To understand and solve complex issues
• Whose solutions lie outside the capacity and
  responsibility of a single sector

Federal/Provincial/Territorial Advisory Committee
on Population Health Intersectoral Action Towards
Population Health, 1999
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Health, Well-being, and Competence

• Are communal responsibilities
• Are determined in the same way
• But, we all have a role to play in how the
  future unfolds . . . .

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We live, love, learn, and develop our human-being
in the shelter of each other.
Can we each go forth to make Prince Albert a
place where all can, not only survive, but thrive?