making early childhood everyone’s business presented to the 2005 osep national early childhood...

Making Early Childhood Everyone’s Business

Presented toThe 2005 OSEP

National Early Childhood ConferenceFebruary 7, 2005

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Who is responsible for our young children?

How do we make them everyone’s responsibility?

What a child will be depends on you and me.™

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Invest in Kids

A national Canadian charitableorganization dedicated to ensuringthe healthy social, emotional andintellectual development of childrenfrom birth to age five.


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Invest in Kids

We translate the science of parenting and child development into easy to understand, engaging and relevant messages and resources for all those who touch the lives of our youngest children.

Our staff consist of experts in child development, parenting, research, marketing and communications working together with a broad national network of specialists.


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Our Goal

To reach every parent and professional involved with young families with the resources and support they need to ensure the best possible start for Canada’s youngest children.


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Why focus on 0-5?

The first five years are pivotal in the development of a child’s ability to learn and create, to love and to trust, and to develop a strong sense of themselves.

And the time when we as adults have the most profound influence on our children’s future wellbeing.

“The years before five last the rest of their lives”


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What is the need?

HRDC’S National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth tells us…

• Nearly 30% of Canada’s children aged 0-6 have a cognitive or behavioural problem

• These children are found across our society from top to bottom…they are all our children!

• These problems are related to a lack of positive parenting

“The effects of positive parenting far outweigh the effects of income.” J. Douglas Wilms, Vulnerable Children


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What is the need?


The prevalence of vulnerable children by family income

37.1

28.625.4

24.2

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5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

Quartiles

Perc

enta

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Lowest Quartile

Lower Middle

Upper Middle

Highest Quartile

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What is the need?

Invest in Kids’ National Survey of Parents of Young Children found while all believe being a good parent is the most important thing they can do,

• Too many parents fail to use positive parenting behaviour

• Most have limited knowledge of how children grow and develop

• They are anxious and concerned and not confident of their parenting skills

• They don’t feel supported in their role as parents.What a child will be depends on you and me.™

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Parents want and need help!

That means

1. Building community support for parents and young families

2. Providing professionals with the tools they need to be effective working with young children and their families

3. Helping parents acquire the parenting knowledge, skills and confidence they need to ensure the best start for their children

…making early childhood everyone’s business.


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What we do

Fueled, informed and influenced by our research andbest practice:

• Public Education: to build community support for positive parenting and healthy child development

• Parent Education: materials, products and resources to help parents become the parents they want and need to be.

• Professional Education: training, resources and tools to support professionals in their professional development


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Our core strategy

1.Build Awareness and Understanding …of the importance of the early years and the role

we all can and should play

2. Provide support for Parents …directly and through the professionals who work with families of young children

Through partnerships with public, private and not-for profit sector organizations


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Building Awareness and Understanding

1. Get the FactsDo the research, become the experts or align yourself with the experts…build credentials and

credibility


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Building Awareness and Understanding

2. Build awareness and understanding in compelling and impactful ways targeted to audiences

• Within the policy and research communities, use the data that compels, encourages the right dialogues

• Create and run public education and awareness campaigns


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Years Before Five Campaign


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Years Before Five Campaign


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Providing Support for Parents

We recognize:

• Parents learn and access information in different ways. And they are at different stages of interest and need

• Therefore, there is no one solution for providing support

• We can’t expect parents to “come to us” . We have to go where they are, where they live….on T.V., in magazines, into their home, in grocery stores, etc.


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Providing Support for Parents

Our initiatives include:• Get Set for Life which uses mass media and

marketing to reach parents• Welcome to Parenting Box, a new parent toolkit

delivered by frontline professionals• Parent Help Line, anonymous, confidential

information, counselling, referral and support delivered via phone counsellors and the internet 24/7

• Professional education institutes for a range of professionals working young children and their families

• www.investinkids.ca parent and professional sites


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Comfort, Play & Teach: A Positive Approach to ParentingTM

A framework for organizing our resources

Developed by Invest in Kids to encourage positive parenting through everyday activities and routines of parents with their young children.

Based on science and best practice

Embedded into all our materials

Provides a common language for us to talk to both professionals and parents, and they to each other


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Comfort, Play & Teach: A Positive Approach to ParentingTM

A practical, inclusive and empowering and strength-based approach to positive parenting

“when you comfort, play with and teach your child, you open a world of possibilities”


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Public Education to embed the concept


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Creating partnerships to deliver support to parents


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Get Set for Life

A national multi-media campaign that uses the power of media and marketing of CBC, Canadian Living magazine, Unilever Canada, the makers of Lipton, Sunlight products to reach parents.

With the animated Zap family as ambassadors of good parenting, Get Set for life uses Comfort, Play and Teach to provide practical messages and resources for parents.


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The program elements• Televison:

– 60 second animated Zap Comfort, Play and Teach messages air daily

– Celebrity spots that reinforce “we are in it together”

– Prime time special on the importance of early years and role of parents

• Magazine ads that reinforce the Comfort, Play and Teach message

• Booklets that provide information on child development and parenting in an easy to absorb magazine format

• www.getsetforlife.ca provides gateway to extensive information on child development and parenting


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The program elements

• Zap family messages on Lipton soup packages and in Sunlight boxes and at Unilever-sponsored events

• Editorial on Unilever brands’ websites and corporate HomeBasics Magazine and website

• The Get Set for Life Tour and Birthday Party Contests, bringing CBC Kids’ celebrities to local communities

• Zap family video and guidebook and ready to go presentation for professionals to use with families


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The program elements

Get Set for Life Welcome to Parenting Box


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Strategies to engage corporate partners: what we’ve learned

1. Like any relationship that is going to work, should be based on shared values, goals and compatible needs

2. That means we need to find common ground where both organizations’ needs are met

3. Be flexible and open to possibilities, not judgmental…we don’t have the moral high ground

4. As with any good partnership, there has to be a win-win. Our corporate partners need to benefit and get value out of the relationship


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5. Understand they are charged with being profitable, not mission driven, but that is ok: good corporate citizenship is good business

6. We must make ourselves and our cause relevant to them: as individuals and as stewards of their business

7. Look for the organizations that have compatible values, target audiences and show them how supporting you will be good for business.


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8. It’s more than just the money: the goal is a relationship with supporting behaviour, involving their employees, customers, suppliers, their marketing efforts

9. Use their language, speak in their terms: Be fact and evidence based: it is important

to demonstrate value for their efforts Be clear on deliverables and expected

outcomes Look for ways to measure performance

10. Employees are starting to be real influencersWhat a child will be depends on you and me.™

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11.Corporate community is interested in today more than too far into the future: need to show them how early childhood and parenting helps the business today

12.Corporations are filled with parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles: society is made up of individuals with individual hopes and dreams for themselves and their families. Tape into that powerful space!


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A final observation

In Canada,

We sense a society ready to embrace responsibility for our young children

Federal and provincial government initiatives are putting early child development as a priority

Business community more and more supportive Media is keeping the issues salient

This is good news, because…


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What our children will be…

…..depends on you and me.


making early childhood everyone’s business presented to the 2005 osep national early childhood...

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