Rotary Club of Windsor (1918)
Children's Development Committee Page
Our Club is Located in Windsor Ontario Canada
Welcome to the Children's Development Committee Page. The information
below describes the mandate and activities of this committee.
Children's Development Committee Mandate
A Message from the Ministry of Community and Social Services
The government recently launched a strategy to provide the province's
vulnerable children with a better start in life. Through the Healthy Babies,
Healthy Children program, children at risk will be identified early and
linked with needed community supports.
We are confirming ongoing funding for the Better Beginnings, Better Futures
program which serves families with young children who live in high-risk
neighbourhoods. By focusing our efforts on early identification and
prevention we will be better able to prevent later problems. We have also
established a partnership with the Canadian Living Foundation and the
Grocery Industry Foundation (GIFT) to implement a child nutrition initiative.
We have also taken steps to strengthen protection services for children.
By designing an interactive database for Children's Aid Societies (CAS) and
introducing a standard, province-wide risk assessment system, CAS workers
will be better able to identify, track and protect children at risk. The
recent Budget announced $15 million to support these and other measures to
strengthen the child protection system.
Children's Development Committee Activities
"The First Years Are Forever"- Children's
Development Committee program
launch date - Nov 3/1997
On Monday, February 9, 1998,
The Children's Development Committee, in partnership with the
Ministry of
Community and Social Services, hosted a meeting which featured a
presentation on the Hawaii Prevention Model for assisting at risk
families with young children.
The Speaker, Becky Ruffner, who has
been responsible for the development and implementation of the
Hawaii model of prevention in Arizona, U.S.A., spoke about programs
that have helped reduce the incidence of a wide range of mental health
and learning problems for young children. Rebecca is founder and Executive
Director of Prevent Child Abuse Inc..
Her talk made 4 main points:
(1) As the twig is bent so grows the tree.
(2) Things are getting worse with families.
(3) The good news is that we can do something about this.
(4) Prevention is the only solution we can affect.
On Monday, November 16th - Mary Louise Drake spoke to the club about
"Building Blocks For Better Babies", a program funded by
Health Canada
designed to reduce the number of
low birth weight babies.
The university of Windsor's School of Nursing is a sponsoring agency of the Windsor
Essex Prenatal Nutrition Committee that offers the program locally.
References:
1)
Prenatal and Perinatal Preventive Care -
Canadian Task Force on Preventative Health Care
2)
The Canada Prenatal Nutrition Program is a comprehensive Program
designed to provide food supplementation, nutrition counselling, support,
education, referral and counselling on lifestyle issues to pregnant women
who are most likely to have unhealthy babies.
(This note was prepared in advance of the event)
The Children's Development Committee selected May 28th, 2001 as Children's Advocacy Day. Our speaker was Dan Offord, a child psychiatrist whose landmark research on children emphasizes the importance of parent-focused and child-focused activities for optimum development in the early years of life.
Dr. Offord is the Atkinson Fellow in CIAR's Program in Human
Development Head, based at The Canadian Centre for Studies of Children at
Risk, McMaster University and Hamilton Health Sciences Corporation.
The Luncheon meeting hosted many guests from the Childrens' Services community as well as other interested parties.
Children's Development Links to other Web Sites
Children's Activities, Shareware, Freeware, Crafts, Robots
Last Revised: May 3, 2007
The Committee shall initiate a campaign to publicize the fact that
children from conception to school age are in extreme need of attention from parents and family.
Studies have proven that
the amount of attention given will
determine a child's future health and emotional well being.
The Children's Development Committee selected May 28th, 2001 as Children's Advocacy Day. Our speaker was Dan Offord, a child psychiatrist whose landmark research on children emphasizes the importance of parent-focused and child-focused activities for optimum development in the early years of life.
