Our current activities include:

Research

      Growing Together Demonstration Project: Invest in Kids supports the Growing Together model of community-based prevention and early intervention programs because it is designed to improve social, emotional and cognitive development of young children in high risk neighbourhoods.

The demonstration sites now operate in St. James Town in Toronto, the District of Plamondon in Montreal and in Dartmouth & Cape Breton. Invest in Kids was instrumental in the expansion of the model into both Quebec and Nova Scotia.

In addition to supporting the demonstration of this model, Invest in Kids is leading the preparation for monitoring and assessing the impact across the four sites.

       Parent Poll: A National Survey of Parents with Children under 6: a survey of over 1600 Canadian mothers and fathers of infants and young children to determine their knowledge, confidence, activities and parenting styles in caring for their children.

       Needs Assessment: Training for Professional Who Work with Young Children: a survey of Ontario professional groups who work regularly with young children to determine the current level of professional training as well as the gaps and barriers to learning on key topics of healthy child development.

      " Evaluation Of Early Intervention Research": Invest in Kids commissioned Drs. Mrazek and Brown, known for their high caliber methodology in evaluating the scientific rigour of intervention research, to conduct a world-wide review of early intervention studies from the prenatal through age five period of life.

The review identified 4,000 studies with psychosocial interventions. Only 165 had at least a comparison or a control group. The report focuses on the top 34, and includes 900 child, parent and community outcomes from these studies.

A second report, by Crooks and Peters of Queen’s University, categorizes the Mrazek and Brown findings by type of intervention and outcome. The reports have been peer reviewed by a noted methodologist, an academic policy advisor and a program administrator.

Human Resources Development Canada and Health Canada co-sponsored a national conference of researchers and policymakers to discuss the findings and implications of these reports and reviews.

The complete report will be ready for public dissemination in Spring 2001

Readiness-to-Learn: a large-scale field test to determine the feasibility, acceptability and psychometric soundness of a comprehensive measure of children's readiness to learn.

"Webforum 2001: A Millenial Discussion On Early Child Development": In Nov 2001, Dr. Dan Keating of the University of Toronto will convene the world’s top scholars in early child development to discuss their work and the future directions of their various disciplines.

The experts include: Ron Barr, N. Thomas Boyce, Dante Cichetti, Megan Gunnar, Alicia Lieberman, Charles Nelson, Sir Michael Rutter and Richard Tremblay

Their expertise covers emotional development, early experience and brain development, biological reactivity to stress, social relationships and the regulation of stress, and normal and abnormal development of competence and coping.

Live on the Internet, the scholars will present their views, discuss their positions among themselves, respond to viewer questions and synthesize their positions.

Their papers and recommendations will provide the basis for a post-conference curriculum on early child development, with support from the Lawson Foundation.

Public Education and Awareness

The Years before 5" Campaign: a multimedia campaign to raise the public's awareness and understanding of the importance of the early years --and the profound impact we all have on young children.

The "Years Before 5" Resource Kit: Knowing parents are hungry for practical suggestions we created the "Years Before Five Resource Kit."

This colourful tablet lists the milestones for each age, gives practical examples of how parents can provide the 3 essentials of caregiving: comfort, play and teach
through age appropriate activities, and offers referrals to books, magazines, videos and websites, which are endorsed by the Invest in Kids team of experts.

We provide the Kit free to those requesting it through our toll-free number or our website. As of January 2001, 30,000 kits have been distributed.
By the end of 2001, we plan to have distributed a total of 360,000 kits direct to individuals and through programs such as Ontario's Healthy Babies, Healthy Children, corporate employee programs and other venues. Click here to order yours today!

Get Set For Life: a national multimedia public education campaign led by Invest in Kids, CBC Television and Canadian Living Magazine, supported by Unilever Canada (through their Sunlight and Lipton products) and Bell Canada, in collaboration with Health Canada, to educate parents and caregivers with the latest information on early child development and to support their efforts to ensure the healthy development of children from birth to five years of age.

Parent Help Line: Invest in Kids collaborated with Kids Help Foundation to launch a bilingual nation-wide, toll-free, confidential telephone and website service,available 24 hours a day, providing parents across Canada with information, counselling and referrals to local services.

Parent Help Line includes:
- phone access to live professional counsellors and a library of over 250 recorded messages
- a website featuring the Message Library with supplemental information, discussion forums and links.

Invest in Kids created the Message Library by working closely with some of Canada's leading psychologists, psychiatrists, public health nurses, social workers, nutritionists, physical education specialists and speech and language therapists.

Our next step is to translate the Message Library into different languages. To reach the Parent Help Line, call: 1-888-603-9100 or visit parentsinfo.sympatico.ca

"Pathways To Competence" Broadcast and Video Set:
Invest in Kids is partnering with one of Canada's foremost early child development
experts, Dr. Sarah Landy, to produce her book, "Pathways to Competence:
Encouraging Healthy Social and Emotional Development in Young Children"
as a broadcast series and video set.

This series shows how real families can assist young children acquire the 10 competencies they need when they go to kindergarten:
- body control, language, self-esteem, values, emotions, problem solving and negotiation, empathy, imagination, symbolization and trust

The video series will be
- broadcast nationally (and internationally)
- sold via retail and direct, for those who can afford to buy it
- disseminated through education, health and social service agencies to those families who cannot purchase it

Training

Click here to find out more about our training initiatives