Recommendations and courses of action

Among the key success factors concerning the initiatives supported by Avenir d’enfants is the partners’ ability to act collectively, meaning setting common priorities, carrying out concerted actions, and conducting evaluations together so they can make ongoing improvements.

Building bridges between different organizations and reducing competitive pressures between stakeholders with the potential to become partners can help strengthen collective action as it engages all available forces and resources for the benefit of children’s development and parent support. This collaboration model has been possible to implement owing to, among other things, appointing a person tasked with coordinating partner efforts at the local or regional level, backed up by an impartial, Québec-wide support and guidance structure.

It appears crucial to maintain the factors underpinning successful collective actions and build on the existing links between partners from various regions and levels, on the one hand, and, on the other, the many donors and funding partners with the power to influence, either directly or indirectly, the well-being of young children and their families, as well as their living conditions.

Courses of action

Coordination and mobilization support for early childhood development

• Make resources available to establish a position tasked with coordinating activities and supporting the early childhood development partners at the local and regional levels
• Ensure the partners get relevant support based on an approach that systematically considers the children, families, and their environments when planning and implementing integrated actions in the community
  • Espace libre action (Tandem 0-6 ans)
• Maintain the existing agreements with First Nations, Cree, and Inuit in order to support their capacity for action on behalf of the children and families in their communities
  • Partenariat stratégique dans le milieu des Premières Nations (Commission de la santé et des services sociaux des Premières Nations du Québec et du Labrador (CSSSPNQL))
  • Tasiurvik Family House : How it came to be (Northern Village of Kuujjuaraapik)
  • Entente avec les Cris 

Funding and accountability

• Support collective action with funding and guidance that meet the priorities, as defined by the local and regional stakeholders, such as:  
• restricting funding to project proposals
• using flexible funding criteria
• allowing for experimentation and innovation
• Fiche synthèse des 12 conseils langage (Table de concertation Petite enfance de Parc-Extension) 
• La Voix des parents : une démarche collaborative 
• Guide d’accompagnement à la première transition scolaire (Projet Partenaires pour la réussite éducative en Estrie)
• Apprivoiser le risque (Tandem 0-6 ans) 

• Support the roll-out of action plans with a minimum three-year duration and streamline the reporting requirements in cases where a single project is supported by several donors or funding partners

Evaluations and using the results

• Provide dedicated support for participatory evaluations conducted by and for the local partners that make room for critical reflections concerning the manner of working together, the initiatives implemented, and their impact on the children and families and their environments
• Mieux soutenir nos garçons (Les partenaires pour la petite enfance de la MRC des Sources)
• Évaluation de la continuité des actions auprès des familles (Table de concertation des services à la petite enfance St-Henri/Petite-Bourgogne) 
• Évaluation des effets du plan d’action (200 portes HM)
• Rapport d’apprentissage collectif sur la mise en oeuvre et sur les retombées du plan d’action 2014-2016 (Concertation Ahuntsic petite enfance (CAPE)
• Document the regional and Québec-wide effects resulting from the mobilization and collaborations on behalf of early childhood
• Maintain and promote the agirtot.org web platform as a tool for sharing and knowledge transfer between partners implicated in early childhood development
• Establish procedures for sharing and appropriating knowledge between partners implicated at the local, regional, and Québec-wide levels; and plan for inter-region sharing opportunities

Systemic barriers may prevent young children and their families from accessing the services intended for them. These barriers may concern public and private services, as well as the policies, laws, and frameworks in effect in our society. A multitude of intervention workers, measures, and initiatives are at the disposal of children and families. They transcend the established borders between the public health and social services network, educational child care services, community organizations, school system, and municipalities. The indications are loud and clear: Intervention workers and families have everything to gain from seeing these different services decompartmentalized and making it easier to move between the various networks, and preventing any collected information from being lost whenever a child or parent advances into a new environment.

The partners’ engagement must nevertheless be robust in order to ensure this improved coordination can be successful at all levels, from the local context all the way up to the ministries responsible for children’s development. As such, it is essential to team up with the parents and recognize their experience and role as their children’s primary educators. It is equally important to rethink the links between the different family services and reimagine them in a continuum involving all relevant stakeholders, beginning with pregnancy and continuing to guide young children into the period when they transition into school.

Courses of action

Service continuum

• Beginning with pregnancy, establish a preventive service continuum involving all frontline services (family medicine groups, pharmacists, community organizations, social pediatrics centres, drop-in child care centres, municipal day camps, educational child care services, school boards, integrated health and social services centres, etc.) by improving, among other things, the coordination between the individual services so that children and families can more readily access the appropriate resources.
• Zoom sur l’orthophonie communautaire (Groupe de travail montérégien – Orthophonie et développement du langage) 
• Allo-BB-Outil de référence vers les services lévisiens en périnatalité (pour les intervenants) (Regroupement des acteurs en petite enfance de Lévis) 
• Petits et grands, à vos routines! (Table de concertation en petite enfance de Dorval-Lachine) 
• La maternelle : un grand départ pour un grand voyage! (200 portes HM) 
• Mon parcours – My journey (transition scolaire – school transition) (Réseau 0-5 Haut-Saint-Laurent) 
• La transition entre le service éducatif à la petite enfance et la maternelle (Trois-Rivières en Action et en Santé (comité 0-5 ans))
• Support community and institutional initiatives geared to identifying any developmental problems in children as early as possible and to promptly intervene with preventive measures to minimize the risk of aggravating the problems further.
• Les Petits Matelots de Rivière-Pentecôte (Éveil Action) 
• Orthophonie communautaire – Trousse de conseils langage (Table de concertation Petite enfance de Parc-Extension)
• Mon guide de développement 0-5 ans (CAL Mont-Laurier-Rivière-Rouge) 
• Grant adequate, recurring funding support to family-focused community organizations,  community drop-in child care centres, and perinatal resource centres so they are in a position to live up to their supporting and guiding roles regarding children and their families.
• Halte-répit familiale Sainte-Marguerite-Lac-Masson (Comité 0-5 ans des Pays-d’en-Haut) 
• Drawing on relevant government policies (Québec preventive health policy, Policy on educational success, Stratégie 0-8 ans, and Québec’s 2015-2015 national health program), establish and support an inter-ministerial body with a mandate to coordinate the implementation of measures and services intended for children and their parents, from pregnancy until school entry.

Strengthening parents’ capacity to act

• Implicate parents in the elaboration of available family services and the evaluation of service quality, and institute regular dialogue spaces between parents and the individuals working in these services.
• Évaluation des besoins et de la satisfaction des familles ayant des enfants entre 0 et 5 ans en Beauce (Vers l’avant, 0-5 ans!) 
• Voix des parents : Papotine & Babiole, un groupe de parents, une démarche à succès! (Table de concertation en périnatalité et petite enfance du Haut-Richelieu) 
• Rencontres entre parents (Comité de soutien communautaire à la famille de Bellechasse) 
• Conversations citoyennes (Unis pour les tout-petits) 
• Support community initiatives that aim to strengthen families’ capacity to act with regard to their living conditions (access to food and housing, access to jobs and schooling, integration of immigrants, etc.).
• Bedons ronds (Parcours d’enfants) 
• Générations Plus (GénérAction) 

At the heart of Avenir d’enfants’ mission is a particular concern for supporting the development of children living in underprivileged circumstances. Material and social deprivation affects a wide range of families, including those with Aboriginal, immigrant, and ethnic minority backgrounds, and living in rural as well as urban environments. Above all else, the deprivation can significantly impact their daily lives, health and well-being over many years.

In view of the fact that one third of children growing up in underprivileged circumstances are deemed vulnerable in at least one aspect of their development when they enter kindergarten, there is good reason to allow for additional efforts to carefully adapt services to these different circumstances. Nevertheless, obstacles remain that prevent some families from obtaining all the support they require, especially families living in underprivileged circumstances.

In addition to living in unfavourable socio-economic circumstances that harm their health and well-being, these families often experience major difficulties accessing services. Six major access barrier categories affecting the life course of these families have been documented. They may be individual or personal, physical, social, organizational, systemic or economic in nature. If we raise the relevant stakeholders’ awareness about the existence of these barriers, make available the necessary resources to rectify the situation, and adapt services to the needs of families living in underprivileged circumstances, it is possible to make a big difference in the lives of those with the greatest needs.

Courses of action

Outreach approach

• Support outreach services (frontline community workers, resources deployed beyond the organizations’ walls, etc.) based on the communities’ experiences with implementing these types of initiatives.
• Agente de liaison (Parcours d’enfants)
• Équipe d’agents de promotion (Réseau 0-5 ans Haut-Saint-Laurent)
• Recherche-action « Aller au bord de l’exclusion » (COSMOSS) 
• Intervenante pivot en petite enfance (Action-Santé l’Envolée Abitibi-Ouest) 
• Integrate the outreach approach success factors into the work practices of the individuals employed in the health and social services network:
• Meet with the families in places where they already are
• Strengthen families’ capacity to act so they can wield greater control over their lives
• Coaching familial (COSMOSS Les Basques) 
• Assign an outreach worker to look after all the organizations in a given community and act as a facilitator between the community’s resources and the families

Continuous improvement of the available guidance and services

• Mandate the public health institutions to systematically document the access barriers affecting the services intended for children and their families.
• Put in place success factors that enable organizations to regularly review their practices in order to ease the access barriers. For example:
• Allocate time for team reflections
• Clinical supervision and a space where colleagues can share and exchange
• Coherence between intervention work with families and management practices
• Call one’s existing practices into question
• Offer continuing education options
• Review policies as well as funding and staff management practices to ensure that the individuals working on family- and children-centred projects are allowed adequate time to build a strong relationship of trust with the families living in underprivileged circumstances.

The early childhood period is a crossroads, where a multitude of issues faced by Québec society intersect: educational success, the fight against poverty, the revitalization of rural municipalities, labour shortage problems, the promotion of healthy lifestyle habits, to name just a few. Preventive action increasingly means having to intervene in early childhood development. It therefore appears crucial to engage all stakeholders concerned with these issues. There are plenty of areas where action can be taken. From children’s overall development to work-life balance, to the educational and support services available in the health and social services network and the community—a range of major structuring measures may be conducted  or implemented to help strengthen the support networks of children and their families.

The quality of the services available to families deserves particular attention, especially in underprivileged environments, where service quality issues may compound the existing risk factors and contribute to further compromising the well-being of children and their parents. Service quality depends on a whole range of factors, some of the most important ones being the degree of expertise and interpersonal skills of the individuals charged with collaborating with children and their parents. The competence and attitudes expressed by these staff members in their dealings with the families play a crucial role in forging a solid relationship of trust with the families, developing the children’s full potential, and respecting the role of the parents. Enhancing the basic training, continuing education, and guidance available to the individuals working in the various networks can lead to major improvements in the quality of the services available to children and families in Québec.

Courses of action

Service quality

• Strengthen support measures to help improve the quality of the services available to children and families with enhanced guidance and funding resources in order to:
• Improve the theoretical and practical aspects of the basic training program for individuals tasked with  working with children and their families, with a particular focus on such subjects as intervention in underprivileged environments, access barriers, relationship with the parent, social and emotional skills, and language development
• Halte-garderie du cœur…pour toujours! (Cégep de Saint-Hyacinthe)
• Offer guidance as well as learning and clinical support to the individuals working with families and children
• Accroître les compétences en matière de prévention et de dépistage des mauvais traitements physiques chez les 0-5 ans (Centre de liaison sur l’intervention et la prévention psychosociale - CLIPP) 
• Support the continuous improvement of  practices, professional training and development, and integration of knowledge and skills into the networks that offer services for children and families.
• Approche personnalisée : le parent, premier éducateur de son enfant (Table des partenaires en petite enfance de Saint-Hubert)
• Je grandis en halte-garderie (Association des haltes-garderies communautaires du Québec)
• Petite enfance, grande importance (Association des centres de la petite enfance du Québec)
• Communautés de pratiques et de savoirs du projet Agora (Fédération des organismes communautaires Famille du Québec)
• Trousse de référence et d’animation sur l’action communautaire autonome Famille (Fédération des organismes communautaires Famille du Québec) 
• Systematically evaluate the quality of the services available to families

Quand plusieurs mains se mettent à la pâte : l’expérience d’une démarche d’évaluation partagée entre 8 RLP (Université du Québec en Outaouais)

Population surveys and research

• Enhance knowledge about the status of children’s development and their parents’ experiences by:
• Replicating the large-scale population surveys on the subject (EQDEM, EQPEM, EQEPE)
• Supporting the academic research chairs interested in these subjects
• Penser la parentalité au Québec : un modèle théorique et un cadre conceptuel pour l’initiative Perspectives parents (Les cahiers du CEIDEF) 

Public policies

• Adopt a new perinatal policy to succeed the one that expired in 2018 and support a diverse and universally accessible range of perinatal services .
• La Maison Bleue, un modèle innovateur en périnatalité sociale (Maison Bleue) 
• Institute a systematic practice whereby the pregnancy confirmation appointment also serves as the starting point for the perinatal service continuum, as provided for in Québec’s 2008-2018 perinatal policy. In doing so, any future parents who so desire will get a telephone call from a nurse at their local integrated health and social services centre (CISSS) and be offered:
• Information about the available resources in their community
• Comité périnatal (Regroupement des acteurs en petite enfance de Lévis)
• Outil services aux familles (Lac-Saint-Jean-Est 0-5 ans)
• Various options for receiving perinatal information (handbooks, perinatal meetings, etc.)
• Pre- and post-natal visits, as required
• Referral, at the outset of the pregnancy, to a program appropriate to their expectations or situation (Québec’s smoking cessation program, Integrated perinatal and early childhood development services for vulnerable families, etc.)
• L’univers OLO : une signature et des outils éducatifs colorés, ludiques et adaptés sur la saine alimentation (Fondation OLO)
• Continue efforts to renew Québec’s family policy, in particular concerning child development, health and social services care, supporting and respecting the parent’s role, and work-family balance
• Ramp up actions concerning young children and their parents in the family policies in effect in Québec’s municipalities.
• Municipalité amie des enfants (Carrefour d’action municipale et famille)
• Municipalité et tout-petits, une alliance gagnante (Carrefour d’action municipale et famille)

Québec-wide collective

• Maintain a Québec-wide intersectoral committee with a mandate to make early childhood development a social priority