Photo courtesy Roots to Wings program
Government representatives, parents, and those working in the childcare field are learning the best practices to give young kids a good foundation for the rest of their lives.
The Roots to Wings (R2W) Early Childhood Conference, hosted by the Northern Early Years Coalition, runs for three days this week in La Ronge, starting on Tuesday.
The conference is the first of its kind in northern Saskatchewan, bringing together more than 200 parents and professionals, said organizer Rachael Steinke, who also works at KidsFirst North.
“We want to make sure that our children are getting the best start in life and that really means that parents and early childhood professionals are working with children to ensure that all of those little connections that happen in the brain at an early point in life are connecting the way they should,” Steinke said.
Steinke doesn’t avoid some of the grim realities in northern Saskatchewan. For example, Aboriginal children are far more likely to be taken into protective custody than non-Aboriginal children.
One of the conference goals is to provide families with the skills to raise their children in healthy homes.
“The idea behind this is absolutely preventative. We actually do have a number of Child and Family Services agencies who will be attending this conference as well,” Steinke said.
She says the subject matter of R2W is particularly important in northern Saskatchewan, where birth rates are approximately double the rest of the province.
“We have lots of children in northern Saskatchewan and not a lot of resources to go around. The cost of food is also exponentially higher in many areas of northern Saskatchewan as well,” she said.
Another measurable statistic is that northern children are more likely to have dental carries, “which means our kid’s teeth aren’t always the healthiest,” Steinke said.
The Population Health Unit is working hard on an education campaign to help kids grow up with good dental health.
“Some of those things right now we’re really starting to focus on education and making sure that people know what are the affordable things that they can do to support their child’s dental and oral health,” Steinke said.
That could be something as simple as not serving juice in bottles.
Nutrition and oral health is one of the four learning objectives for conference attendees to take away from the conference.
A session on building your child’s vocabulary covers another objective, which cover the objective of brain development.
The last two objectives are children’s rights and emphasizing the benefits of traditional knowledge in raising small children.
The aims of the conference are to build capacity and momentum in early childhood development programming and initiatives.