Corter – TFD summary report

Our summary report of the findings of phase I of Toronto First Duty show three major impacts. The first kind of impact is that children are improving where these programs have been introduced and are working well. And we know that by looking at the patterns on the Early Development Instrument; by seeing change over time, and by comparing Toronto First Duty sites with similar community sites which didn’t have this kind of integration of child care, kindergarten, parenting programs and other kinds of community supports for young children and families. So the EDI has improved, particularly in the social and emotional areas of children’s development in these communities. So we’re seeing community impacts of this integrative program,  

A second area in which we’ve found impact, which we think is very promising, is in terms of parental involvement and capacity to help children learn and develop. Parents who have been in these types of programs report that they are better able to help their children learn and they also feel more empowered to connect to services, to be involved with the school as their child moves into kindergarten. So we think this is really promising because if we help the parents to work more effectively with the school, with their own children, then that should have a long-term impact on child development, and so we’re encouraged by that. 

The third area where we’ve studied the impact of this program is to look at how it affects the actual programs and professional work that’s put together in the integrated package at the school site. So we’re looking at how do the professionals work together: the ECEs, the teachers, the family support workers, we’re looking at the program environments where these programs are integrated. If you bring together care and kindergarten education in the same space, what does that look like, and what is the quality of that environment? And we’ve seen real promise in terms of both improving the program environment s and in terms of getting professionals to the point where they’re working really well together on a common goal.  

I think what you are saying is the initial results are really positive; so this integrated hub model is showing that children are doing better, families like it, and professionals are working well together. So do you think that it’s a model that would work for many different communities?