Family support professionals to enhance learning about early childhood brain development

Times Contributor

 

Professionals who work with families – including parent and family educators, home visitors, Parent Link and Early Childhood Mapping facilitators, mental health providers, nurses, and social workers – will gather for A Community Approach to Healthy Children, a one-day workshop to be held Wednesday, June 5 in Strathmore.

Workshop leader, Dr. Robbin Gibb of the University of Lethbridge, will provide attendees with understanding and resources about how children’s earliest experiences impact their brain development. Participants will receive tools to support parents and families in enhancing optimal brain development in their children during the first five years of life.

“We know that brain development in the first 2,000 days is crucial and that environment leaves its mark,” said Jeanette McKay and May Rostecki-Budzey of the Rural Calgary East Postpartum Support Group, who are involved in organizing the conference. “The more awareness we have as a community (professionals, service providers, parents), the better we are able to provide environments where children can develop to the best of their ability.”

Community programs that involve both parents and children, and offer “positive parenting techniques and appropriate expectations for child development, help to promote a positive, loving, developmentally healthy start in life, which is vital for healthy brain development,” said McKay and Rostecki-Budzey. Parents who attend “also learn that they are not alone when tackling the many challenges of raising a family,” they said.

The Rural Calgary East Postpartum Support Group became involved in organizing this workshop and previous workshops like it, McKay and Rostecki-Budzey said, because they recognized “a need to educate and network professionals within our community, who provide services to families with children (from birth to five years old).”

Beyond the workshop itself, “The awareness of the importance of community involvement in early childhood development has resulted in the formation of the Wheatland Early Childhood Mapping Coalition which brings together agencies, parents and grandparents,” they said. “The mission of this coalition is to increase community capacity to enhance the lives of all children. Anyone with an interest in Early Childhood Development is invited to join the coalition.”

A Community Approach to Healthy Children will take place Wednesday, June 5, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., at Hope Community Covenant Church. For more information, call Growing Families at 403-361-7216. To register, see www.bridgingthegapalberta.ca/about-us/.