Head Start Sharing Circle Stories - North Battleford

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Transcript - Head Start Sharing Circle Stories - North Battleford

(Elder Greeting in Cree)

Welcome to the Battlefords Tribal Council Indian Health Services, Head Start Program.

[Staff working]

Bev Dyck
Consultant/Curriculum Development - Battlefords Tribal Council - Indian Health Services

Our Battlefords Tribal Council Early Head Start Program services the 6 surrounding First Nations communities.

These communities are: Mosquito, Sweetgrass, Red Pheasant, Little Pine, Poundmaker and Moosomin.

[Home visitor packing materials]

Home visiting is the most important part of our program. We really wanted young children to work with their families and we really wanted parents to be able to do the work with their own children.

[Home visitor driving]

Each of the 6 communities has a home visitor, and they can maintain a caseload of about 12 to 15 families.

Nicole Cox
Home Visitor - Aboriginal Head Start on Reserve - Mosquito

On a home visit we deliver the programming that's already set up for us ahead of time, so I know what I'm taking into the home... I know which toys I'm taking in, which books I'm taking in, what activities we'll be doing...

...and basically all I'm doing is acting as a support for the families because the families are the first and best teachers for the children...

...so I'm just coming in with some resources, some ideas and just kind of giving them a guideline or an outline as to the activities that they can do with their child, or children to enhance brain development.

Bev Dyck

All our programming happens right in families' homes, with the exception of Centre Day.

At a Centre Day families can talk with each other and have a chance to network with people in their own communities. They get a chance to see how other parents are parenting and get a chance to learn with and from each other.

We play some games that are brain-building games... we spend a lot of time encouraging families to spend time and talk to their kids... cooking together, playing together, getting exercise together.

Bev Dyck

Part of the reason to have Elders involved at every level that we can, is that we want language and culture to be at the centre of what we do in everything.

Freda Fineday
Elder - Sweetgrass

It is very important for the kids to learn their culture...

...there's always a Cree word that's learned each time we come to Head Start... and they're learning...

...yeah, the children call me Kokum... that means 'grandmother', and I love that.

Bev Dyck

We do health or safety or dental at almost every Centre Day...

Some activities involve showing brushing of teeth, or keeping children safe and certainly we always remind people to use car seats.

Norma Runningaround
Home Visitor - Aboriginal Head Start on Reserve - Sweetgrass

Along with the car seats we provide a teaching and installation... because we're really big on injury prevention, so we're teaching our families how to use the car seats and we want to make sure that they know how to use their car seats.

Bev Dyck

Our Head Start Program requires support from a variety of levels... Health Canada supports us, we get support from the Maternal Child Health Program... we have an opportunity to work with the dental people, we work very closely with our community nurses... some of the schools contributed...

...it's really a great community partnership.

Our Head Start parents are learning new ways to stimulate their kids' brains and to improve the children's language and they work really hard at really being the very best parents they can be for their children.

It's really important to us that we benefit the whole family, and hopefully in looking at a whole family, we benefit the whole community too.

Nicole Cox

The families really do enjoy the programming that we offer, and I think they feel supported... and to be able to deliver that to them in itself is very rewarding.