Making Early Childhood
Everyone’s Business
Presented to
The 2005 OSEP
National Early Childhood Conference
February 7, 2005
Who is responsible for our young
children?
How do we make them everyone’s
responsibility?
What a child will be depends on you and me.™
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Invest in Kids
A national Canadian charitable
organization dedicated to ensuring
the healthy social, emotional and
intellectual development of children
from birth to age five.
What a child will be depends on you and me.™
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Invest in Kids
We translate the science of parenting and child
development into easy to understand,
engaging and relevant messages and resources
for all those who touch the lives of our
youngest children.
Our staff consist of experts in child development,
parenting, research, marketing and communications
working together with a broad national network of
specialists.
What a child will be depends on you and me.™
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Our Goal
To reach every parent and professional
involved with young families with the
resources and support they need to
ensure the best possible start for
Canada’s youngest children.
What a child will be depends on you and me.™
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Why focus on 0-5?
The first five years are pivotal in the development of a
child’s ability to learn and create, to love and to trust,
and to develop a strong sense of themselves.
And the time when we as adults have the most profound
influence on our children’s future wellbeing.
“The years before five last the rest of their lives”
What a child will be depends on you and me.™
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What is the need?
HRDC’S National Longitudinal Survey of Children
and Youth tells us…
• Nearly 30% of Canada’s children aged 0-6 have a
cognitive or behavioural problem
• These children are found across our society from top
to bottom…they are all our children!
• These problems are related to a lack of positive
parenting
“The effects of positive parenting far outweigh the effects of
income.” J. Douglas Wilms, Vulnerable Children
What a child will be depends on you and me.™
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What is the need?
The prevalence of vulnerable children by family income
Percentage of children
40
35
Lowest Quartile
37.1
30
25
20
28.6
Lower Middle
25.4
24.2
Upper Middle
15
10
Highest Quartile
5
0
Quartiles
What a child will be depends on you and me.™
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What is the need?
Invest in Kids’ National Survey of Parents of
Young Children found while all believe being a
good parent is the most important thing they
can do,
• Too many parents fail to use positive parenting
behaviour
• Most have limited knowledge of how children grow and
develop
• They are anxious and concerned and not confident of
their parenting skills
• They don’t feel supported in their role as parents.
What a child will be depends on you and me.™
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Parents want and need help!
That means
1. Building community support for parents and young
families
2. Providing professionals with the tools they need to be
effective working with young children and their
families
3. Helping parents acquire the parenting knowledge, skills
and confidence they need to ensure the best start for
their children
…making early childhood everyone’s business.
What a child will be depends on you and me.™
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What we do
Fueled, informed and influenced by our research and
best practice:
• Public Education: to build community support for positive
parenting and healthy child development
• Parent Education: materials, products and resources to help
parents become the parents they want and need to be.
• Professional Education: training, resources and tools to support
professionals in their professional development
What a child will be depends on you and me.™
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Our core strategy
1.Build Awareness and Understanding
…of the importance of the early years and the role we
all can and should play
2. Provide support for Parents
…directly and through the professionals who work
with families of young children
Through partnerships with public, private and
not-for profit sector organizations
What a child will be depends on you and me.™
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Building Awareness and
Understanding
1. Get the Facts
Do the research,
become the experts or
align yourself with the
experts…build
credentials and
credibility
What a child will be depends on you and me.™
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Building Awareness and
Understanding
2. Build awareness and understanding in
compelling and impactful ways targeted
to audiences
• Within the policy and research communities, use the
data that compels, encourages the right dialogues
• Create and run public education and awareness
campaigns
What a child will be depends on you and me.™
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Years Before Five Campaign
What a child will be depends on you and me.™
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Years Before Five Campaign
What a child will be depends on you and me.™
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Providing Support for Parents
We recognize:
• Parents learn and access information in different ways.
And they are at different stages of interest and need
• Therefore, there is no one solution for providing
support
• We can’t expect parents to “come to us” . We have to
go where they are, where they live….on T.V., in
magazines, into their home, in grocery stores, etc.
What a child will be depends on you and me.™
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Providing Support for Parents
Our initiatives include:
• Get Set for Life which uses mass media and marketing
to reach parents
• Welcome to Parenting Box, a new parent toolkit
delivered by frontline professionals
• Parent Help Line, anonymous, confidential information,
counselling, referral and support delivered via phone
counsellors and the internet 24/7
• Professional education institutes for a range of
professionals working young children and their families
• www.investinkids.ca parent and professional sites
What a child will be depends on you and me.™
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Comfort, Play & Teach:
A Positive Approach to Parenting
TM
A framework for organizing our resources

Developed by Invest in Kids to encourage positive
parenting through everyday activities and routines of
parents with their young children.

Based on science and best practice

Embedded into all our materials

Provides a common language for us to talk to both
professionals and parents, and they to each other
What a child will be depends on you and me.™
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Comfort, Play & Teach:
A Positive Approach to Parenting
TM
A practical, inclusive and empowering and strengthbased approach to positive parenting
“when you comfort, play with and teach your child, you
open a world of possibilities”
What a child will be depends on you and me.™
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Public Education to embed the
concept
What a child will be depends on you and me.™
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Creating partnerships to deliver
support to parents
What a child will be depends on you and me.™
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Get Set for Life
A national multi-media campaign that uses the power
of media and marketing of CBC, Canadian Living
magazine, Unilever Canada, the makers of Lipton,
Sunlight products to reach parents.
With the animated Zap family as ambassadors of
good parenting, Get Set for life uses Comfort, Play
and Teach to provide practical messages and
resources for parents.
What a child will be depends on you and me.™
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The program elements
• Televison:
– 60 second animated Zap Comfort, Play and Teach
messages air daily
– Celebrity spots that reinforce “we are in it
together”
– Prime time special on the importance of early
years and role of parents
• Magazine ads that reinforce the Comfort, Play and
Teach message
• Booklets that provide information on child
development and parenting in an easy to absorb
magazine format
• www.getsetforlife.ca provides gateway to extensive
information on child development and parenting
What a child will be depends on you and me.™
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The program elements
• Zap family messages on Lipton soup packages and in
Sunlight boxes and at Unilever-sponsored events
• Editorial on Unilever brands’ websites and corporate
HomeBasics Magazine and website
• The Get Set for Life Tour and Birthday Party
Contests, bringing CBC Kids’ celebrities to local
communities
• Zap family video and guidebook and ready to go
presentation for professionals to use with families
What a child will be depends on you and me.™
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The program elements
Get Set for Life Welcome to Parenting Box
What a child will be depends on you and me.™
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Strategies to engage corporate
partners: what we’ve learned
1. Like any relationship that is going to work, should
be based on shared values, goals and compatible
needs
2. That means we need to find common ground where
both organizations’ needs are met
3. Be flexible and open to possibilities, not
judgmental…we don’t have the moral high ground
4. As with any good partnership, there has to be a
win-win. Our corporate partners need to benefit
and get value out of the relationship
What a child will be depends on you and me.™
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Strategies to engage corporate
partners: what we’ve learned
5. Understand they are charged with being
profitable, not mission driven, but that is ok:
good corporate citizenship is good business
6. We must make ourselves and our cause relevant to
them: as individuals and as stewards of their
business
7. Look for the organizations that have compatible
values, target audiences and show them how
supporting you will be good for business.
What a child will be depends on you and me.™
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Strategies to engage corporate
partners: what we’ve learned
8. It’s more than just the money: the goal is a
relationship with supporting behaviour, involving

their employees, customers, suppliers,

their marketing efforts
9. Use their language, speak in their terms:

Be fact and evidence based: it is important to
demonstrate value for their efforts

Be clear on deliverables and expected
outcomes

Look for ways to measure performance
10. Employees are starting to be real influencers
What a child will be depends on you and me.™
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Strategies to engage corporate
partners: what we’ve learned
11.Corporate community is interested in today more
than too far into the future: need to show them
how early childhood and parenting helps the
business today
12.Corporations are filled with parents,
grandparents, aunts, uncles: society is made up
of individuals with individual hopes and dreams for
themselves and their families. Tape into that
powerful space!
What a child will be depends on you and me.™
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A final observation
In Canada,
We sense a society ready to embrace responsibility
for our young children

Federal and provincial government initiatives are
putting early child development as a priority
Business community more and more supportive
Media is keeping the issues salient

This is good news, because…


What a child will be depends on you and me.™
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What our children will be…
…..depends on you and me.
What a child will be depends on you and me.™
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