Rotary Wheel

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

Book Mark 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.

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.



baby Phil Horn speaks to the Club 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.


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(This note was prepared in advance of the event)
Dr. Offord Lecture Announcement (Click on picture to see full brochure) 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


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Children's Activities, Shareware, Freeware, Crafts, Robots





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Last Revised: May 3, 2007