Family Resource Programs – supporting babies

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Narrator: Newborn to toddler, there’s no other period when babies grow faster or learn more. They learn to move, learn to speak, learn there’s an I and a You, and an entire world outside themselves; a world that can affect them and that they in turn can affect. The whole foundation of
who they will become.

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Title: Supporting Babies

Narrator: How firm that foundation for what’s to follow life or how fragile depends a great deal on what happens during those first few months and years. 

Title: West Side Family Place; Vancouver

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Narrator: Care and nurturing inside the family is very important. But babies grow up in a wider context as well. Recent research shows that communities have a powerful impact on development. Westside Family Place in the Kitisilano neighborhood of Vancouver has been operating an extremely popular parent/child drop-in program for more than 30 years.

Parent: I come here because I like Jasmine to play with other kids and there’s lots of toys here for her to play with. She gets to play with things she doesn’t have at home. Lots of arts and crafts over there which is pretty nice. Probably the nicest thing though is all these other kids around here because at home there’s only myself and my wife and a cat, so she doesn’t get to see too many other kids. And it’s a good excuse sometimes to get out of the house and get her playing around, running around in a safe environment.

My name is Rita and I’m Max’s grandmother and I come here because he doesn’t have any siblings and he needs to see other children and play and its wonderful to be able to find somewhere that’s open all morning, any weather and its great. He is my 2nd grandchild and I just moved back to Vancouver a year ago. I’ve been bringing Martin here for about 6 months and Martin has an older brother so he has no children around him his age or his size. So I find here he’s interacting with little people who he doesn’t see in his normal day life.

Parent: It’s an excellent place for my son to hang out and get to explore his environment and feel safe and meet new little kids and develop his social interaction skills and…

Narrator: During the infant years an amazing process is going on inside babies’ heads. Their brains are actually changing structurally. As infants interact with their environment through  all their senses, new connections are being made between brain cells creating neural pathways. This process is called wiring or sculpting and it’s driven by experiences. As the new connections become physically embedded in the brain they create a basis for future competence and coping skills.

Parent: It’s a very important place for both of us and it really stimulated him. His vocabulary is at a 23-month-old level, he’s always playing with other kids, he’s learning how to share and I got to be with other mothers and go out and form a social life which is really important.

Narrator: Babies’ brains are highly responsive to experience. By providing babies with the best possible environment as well as consistent, attentive nurturing, we’re setting the stage for optimum future development.

Parent: Its just a really positive way that you can interact with your community because there’s a lot of little issues, little steps, little battles that you have as your children go through different stages and chances are you’re going to bump into a parent that’s dealt with it already so that you can sit there and something could be concerning and eventually just by talking it will come out and then they’ll give you some advice and you realize that it’s just not a unique problem for yourself, it’s something that other people have experience too and they can help you get through it.

Narrator: Babies are enthusiastic learners but to venture out and explore freely they need to feel secure. Family resource programs are structured to provide an informal neighborhood setting where parents and their very young children can spend time together. Babies thrive in a setting outside the home where they can explore, learn and be around other small children while taking comfort in the presence of parents or care providers nearby.

Parent: Yeah it’s amazing. When she first came here well she would just curl up and try to get into my skin and now she at least stands up and sometimes she goes out and hugs the other kids and gets to the front. She’s socializing a lot more.

Narrator: Drop-in programs that offer a safe, stimulating environment, one that encourages exploration, social interaction and independent play are important in a baby’s development. But family resource programs can also provide more structured opportunities for delivering knowledge beneficial to parents.

At Andrew Street Family Center in the heart of Winnipeg’s north end, Healthy Start is a community program sponsored by the province of Manitoba. Healthy Start offers social support and a variety of learning opportunities for parents and babies. Group facilitators supply information on nutrition, health and child development.

Program facilitator: I just want to mention, you’ve probably seen this before but we have all our meal bags, they’re out over there. We sell them for a dollar.

Participant: My name’s Amanda and this is Isabel, she’s 6 months and I call her Isabelly.

Participant: And this is Braden, he’s just 3 months April 10th and I like to call him Bubby or Bubs. I call him my little Bubs.

Program facilitator: It’s not fancy toys or TV or anything, it’s you and somebody looking at that baby’s face, talking to them, singing to them, repeating back the little sounds they make, rubbing their bodies, playing with them and of course feeding them. But this is how a newborn brain kind of looks. There are all these little dendrites, the little squiggly things and they’re not connected. And then by the time a baby is two years of age this is what it looks like. So the job of the baby from birth to two and many years beyond is to make all those connections and…

Narrator: Family resource programs offer many kinds of activities based on the needs and interests of families in their community. In Mount Pleasant Family Center in Vancouver parents and staff wanted a special program for babies so they created Baby and Me to learn new songs and nursery rhymes… 

Parent: I’m here to bring my daughter Julia so I can learn some nursery rhymes because I only know the basics… Mary had a little lamb… and they’re getting kind of boring so these guys told us about this program and they had lots of nursery rhymes to learn so I thought great. 

Singing: Rolly, poly, rolly poly, up, up, up Rolly, Rolly, Polly, Rolly, Rolly poly, down, down, down.

Parent: So I live just around the corner but this is the first time I’ve been interested in coming down to group because she’s just ready now to be more interactive with children. It’s great, it’s really nice.

Singing: Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream, merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream.

Parent: Oh this is just great because I’m from Japan so I don’t know many English songs so I see the great opportunity to learn a new song. My husband is Canadian so nice to have both side …I usually sing Japanese song, but this is the great opportunity for me to learn so I get to sing Japanese song and English song.

Singing: Twinkle, twinkle little star, how I wonder what you are. Up above the world so high, like a diamond in the sky. Twinkle, twinkle little star, how I wonder what you are.

Singing: These are Olivia’s fingers, these are Olivia’s toes, this is Olivia’s belly button, round and round it goes.

Narrator: An equally important part of this program is the chance parents have to relax and share their experiences after the group activities are complete. It also provides new families with a starting point for involvement in the center. The popular early literacy program Mother Goose was adapted by a parent group at Frog Hollow Neighborhood house in East Vancouver. Together parents tells stories and learn songs and nursery rhymes from each other.

Singing: If you’re happy and you know it and you really want to show it, if you’re happy and you know it, do all three.

[children laughing]

Program facilitator: Okay, it’s time for story time.

Parent: Once upon a time there was a tall giraffe… a tall giraffe, okay.

Lidija Martinovic; Parent Empowerment Coordinator: We want to empower parents to do something on their own and this idea to create a program with little goslings that are based on the model of Mother Goose was actually excellent because there were two mothers who were trained under the Mother Goose program and they just start running it on their own and they attracted so many parents and it was them who bring their own kids and it was their kids who were involved, so it was completely different environment for parents and that was the idea and that was so effective.

Parent: (storytelling) And he likes to sing…so they were singing…

Narrator: In addition to reviving the age-old tradition of storytelling Little Goslings also builds parent’s confidence and provides a fun group opportunity for their children.

Many family resource programs become gathering places providing parents their only chance to escape isolation. The need can be particularly acute in rural or remote areas. The community action committee for Bay St. George in Newfoundland provides an outreach program to communities throughout the southwest portion of the island including the Bergio Family Resource Program.

Parent: It’s pretty stressful being a parent and my husband is in the construction trades which means he is obviously going to be traveling till he retires, something we’ve come to terms with. I understand what it’s like to be a single parent and it’s got to be difficult to be there by yourself and not have even family support. So I suppose in some strange way this can also be an extended family. People that you see all the time, so it’s nice to come here and talk to other parents and know that they’ve had a bad night up with the children teething or they don’t like a certain food, what do I do, and that kind of stuff. So it’s nice to relate to people and realize that you are doing probably the best you can.

I mean I can’t imagine moving into a small community and not having anybody. This would be a wonderful place to start and I’ve met people in the coast guard, fisheries, and RCMP, through this. I’ve got long lasting friends.

Narrator: Parents with babies can sometimes feel shut in and isolated because the support formerly provided by extended families in established neighborhoods isn’t always available. At Wolsey Family Place in central Winnipeg a relatively mobile population is offer health services, parenting programs and the chance to be part of a community.

Parent: It’s extremely easy. You walk in, people are there to greet you, they’re not there to look at you funny. It’s not a place where it’s an office. It’s home. When you walk in there’s couches there and you’re like hey and people ask you to sit down or go grab a coffee and come sit with us. So you feel like you know them you know, and nobody is looking at you differently. We’re all equal here, we all know each other and when new people come in we greet them the same. We don’t treat them any differently at all. I found that they help you with everything. They help you with your problems, they help you understand what you’re going through… and it gives you a bit of a break, especially being a single mom you don’t get that separation. So if I’m separated from him I could go to a parenting class or I could go cook or do a load of laundry and he could be interacting with other children that are his age. And the women are all so great here. You meet all new friends and then you eventually start hanging around with them outside the center. So you have…so you’re not so isolated, you don’t feel isolated anymore, you have everybody with you.

Narrator: The real strength of family resource programs lies in their broad approach, providing a safe and stimulating and familiar learning environment for babies, enhanced by a supportive, social and instructive setting for their parents and caregivers.

Singing: Two little ducks went out one day, over the hills and far away, mother duck said quack, quack, quack…

Narrator: Family resource programs in all kinds of communities across Canada are making a profound contribution towards something that benefits our whole society. Competent, confident parents raising strong, healthy babies. 

Special thanks to all of the Family Resource Programs who helped us in the making of this video.

Parent: Can you say something in the mike? Can you say the color purple? Child: Purple.

Parent: Oh, that’s very good. That’s one of your favorite words. Can you say banana?

Child: Banana.

Parent: Yeah, that’s good. How about apple?

Child: Apple.

Parent: Yeah, that’s a good one. Can you say bubble?

Child: Bubble.

Parent: It’s just so precious, the moments with him is great. I love it. 

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