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The Healthy Start Team offered our first Facilitator Workshop to equip facilitators to deliver Healthy Start for Families sessions. On September 21, 2019 in Saskatoon we welcomed 13 participants from 7 community organizations, both urban and rural who shared similar goals of offering family engagement programming with a health and wellness focus to the families in their communities. Each organization received information on the Healthy Start for Families program model, a Facilitator Guide, a Toolkit of resources, and an Active Play Equipment kit for their sessions. Facilitators experienced demonstrating a session for the group. During the workshop, facilitators also participated in 4 culinary activities and 4 physical activities that could easily be done with families and early years children. Healthy Start for Families is an adapted version of the Healthy Start program targeting parents, guardians and children ages 0-5 years. The program consists of a series of interactive, kid-friendly activities and cooking sessions, offered free of charge at participating early years centres, local family resource centres or community based organizations. Upcoming Facilitator Workshops for Healthy Start for Families are set to take place in southern Saskatchewan during the month of November in Carlyle or Moose Jaw. For more information on Healthy Start for Families: https://healthystartkids.ca/training/healthy-start-for-families/

PRESS RELEASE – Septembre 16, 2019 – Thanks to a partnership between the Continuing Education of the Université de Moncton, Moncton campus and the Saskatchewan French Health Network (RSFS), the bilingual Healthy Start/Départ Santé (HSDS) training program is now available online. Since its inception in 2012, the HSDS professional development program has trained more than 2,600 early childhood educators to help them integrate healthy eating and physical activity into early childhood settings. Gabrielle Lepage-Lavoie, Manager of the Healthy Start Program, said: “This initiative will make the promotion of physical activity and healthy eating even more accessible to early childhood workers across Canada. We are proud of the quality product that is available and look forward to sharing it with childcare educators and health care professionals working with young children. » Sylvie Desjardins, Professional Development Officer at the Continuing Education, is pleased to see the addition of this new course to their schedule: ” The Continuing Education of the Université de Moncton is proud to partner with the RSFS on this project. I am convinced that making Healthy Start widely available through an interactive and accessible learning platform will make a difference by helping more early childhood professionals access practical tools to promote physical activity and healthy eating, which are essential components for optimal child development. » The development of the online training began in 2017 with the New Brunswick Medical Training Centre, affiliated with the University of Sherbrooke. The University of Moncton’s Learning Technology Group was responsible for technical and pedagogical development of the online platform, in collaboration with the Department of Education Early Childhood Development of New Brunswick. The HSDS training is now integrated to the Department’s introductory online modules for Early Childhood Education. To learn more about Healthy Start online training, visit our online training page: https://healthystartkids.ca/training/healthy-start-online-course/ HSDS was developed by the RSFS – Saskatchewan French Health Network in collaboration with its partners in Saskatchewan and New Brunswick; the program is funded by the Public Health Agency and the Saskatchewan Government – Community Initiatives Fund.

The Réseau Santé en Français de la Saskatchewan and the New Brunswick Gymnastics Association are looking for an organization to coordinate and deliver the Healthy Start for Active Kids (HSAK), a bilingual population health initiative aimed at increasing healthy eating and physical activity opportunities in early years settings.  Please review the following Request For Proposals. Proposals must be submitted no later than August 19, 2019. A summary of the New Brunswick initiative can be found. HERE Request for Proposal – Appel de soumission

We are happy to share the new and improved look of our website. Now it is even easier to interact with the Healthy Start team and our services. Healthy Start offers a variety of training opportunities and resources for educators, teachers and parents. We want you to be able to choose the services and register for training that works for you! Training: You can now register from our website for the following training or sessions: Healthy Start Webinars Healthy Start Online Course Healthy Start Workshops in Saskatchewan Healthy Start for Active Kids workshops in New Brunswick Healthy Start for Families Visit the Training section of our site. Toolkit: On our site you’ll find a variety of tools and resources to help you easily incorporate physical activity and healthy eating in the daily lives of young children. The resources featured have been used in the over 400 early years programs that have taken part in Healthy Start. They are simple to use and effective for getting kids moving and eating well. Healthy Start offers specific tools and resources to inspire early years practitioners, as well as parents and caregivers. You will be amazed by the wealth of activities that only take minutes to prepare and do not require expensive materials! Visit our Toolkit section! We wish to thank our webmaster, Kevin Pryce, for his continued support in refreshing our look!

In May, one of our Implementation Coordinator, Erica Stevenson, traveled to Pelican Narrows and Deschambault Lake (over 1300 KM round trip in the span of 5 days) for booster sessions (follow up visits a few months following the initial HSDS Training).  On her first impression of these communities, Erica note: “The first thing that really stands out to me is how remote these communities are and how many people are in these communities.  I was surprised to learn that there is over 1900 people in Pelican Narrows, over 690 people in Sandy Bay and over 1000 people in Deschambault Lake.” (Statistics Canada 2016) During her trip, our Implementation Coordinator met with child care directors/coordinators, educators, parents, and health professionals in Pelican Narrows, Deschambault Lake, and Sandy Bay. She also observed some challenges regarding healthy eating, namely, the very little variety of healthy foods in the stores for such a big population. Most of the food is packaged items that is ready to eat and will last on a shelf for weeks to months. Fresh food is brought in weekly by truck and cost is higher for foods with shorter shelf life. She adds “One of the stores I viewed had only 8 jugs of milk in the cooler which had me thinking that they don’t sell many or they only buy a certain amount per week.  I had family advise me to bring all my own food from the city to save on costs.”  She also noted that growing gardens in the ground is impossible due to the rocky terrain as well as too much silica which is not ideal for growing food. On the other hand, these communities had also found their own ways to overcome these challenges. Consequently, because nature surrounds them, it continues to be a part of their daily life, including hunting, fishing, trapping and foraging plants and berries. In addition, there was an interest in learning how to garden in each of the communities.  So, during her visit, Erica created an opportunity for the children, their families and the community professionals to come learn and share their experience with one another. In Pelican Narrows, the gardening took place in raised planter containers provided by the Health Centre in their community garden and in Deschambault Lake, they planted bean and sunflower seeds in individual cups for children and their families to take home as well as a spinach garden for the centre. Finally, discussions have started in Sandy Bay to potentially have HSDS back in May 2019 for a community workshop and possibly lend a helping hand to community members to plan a community garden. Regarding physical activity, Erica adds: “The children in Sandy Bay were very excited and had so much energy.  We did a variety of activities indoors and eventually had to get outside on a cool spring day to release even more energy.  The staff and parents that attended were really great and engaged with the children in many active games.” While reflecting on her time in Northern Saskatchewan, Erica notes: “My favorite part of the trip was to see families cautious around the soil transition to become more familiar as they learned more about the process. The children and their families cautiously touch the soil at first, carefully selected their seeds and safely cover them with soil. After a few minutes, most of the children really enjoyed touching the soil.” She ends with: “I hope that these communities keep planting seeds and trying the foods they grow. To me, it is a rewarding feeling to eat something you cared for and starting from a tiny seed.  It is more rewarding to share that knowledge and experience with others.”

On September 26, 2018, the roundtable Sustaining Healthy Start – Beyond 2020 was held at La Cité universitaire francophone in Regina. This important knowledge sharing forum, organised by the Réseau Santé en français de la Saskatchewan (RSFS), addressed the impact of the Healthy Start/Départ santé (HSDS) initiative and its future. The participants at the roundtable were unanimous on the relevance of the program. The question was not “if” it should continue beyond 2020 , but “how” to sustain it in the long term. On March 31, 2020, the HSDS program will reach an important milestone. Fourteen years after its inception, in 2006, HSDS’s Phase 3 will be completed. The project will adopt a delivery model that ensures its long-term viability. To explore various options and venues of action, 35 partners and stakeholders participated at the roundtable in Regina. Seven participants from New Brunswick and a public health nutritionist from La Ronge, in Northern Saskatchewan, joined the proceedings by videoconference. The program’s sustainability is closely linked to having policies in place and access to adequate funding. To achieve this, some efforts will have to be invested in connecting with elected people who have influence on policies and budgets. One of the key messages in this regard will be to educate the policymakers about the benefits of prevention vs. the cost of treating health problems. Work must start now to identify funding sources and secure a financial model that will allow this initiative to continue. To initiate the discussions, a document was prepared to present a comprehensive overview of the project current status as well as a proposed course of action: HSDS White Paper: Preliminary Healthy Start Scale-up Proposal. About HSDS HSDS is a program meant to increase opportunities for physical activity and healthy eating in children attending licensed childcare centers and prekindergarten programs in Saskatchewan and New Brunswick. HSDS provides direct support to directors, educators and cooks with resources, training sessions and ongoing support to enrich the environment and increase the opportunities for children to be active and eat healthy. A value-added component of HSDS’s program is its cultural adaptation for immigrants and First Nations as well as its availability in Canada’s both official languages. What has been learned through the years One of the key components HSDS is its ongoing evaluation by academic partners. Their findings offer a roadmap for developing guidelines for the benefit of early year centres and parents of young children. Dr. Anne Leis, from Department of Community Health & Epidemiology at the College of Medicine of University of Saskatchewan, presented a report at the roundtable that highlighted various positive impacts of the project in phase 2 (2013-2017). Among those it is worth noting that children enrolled in Early Years Centres who participated in HSDS displayed improvement in locomotor skills. Her report also identified many challenges in implementing the program, many of them linked to the limited engagement from parents and childcare workers due to lack of time or high level of staff turnover. There is also the issue surrounding the fact that changes brought by the training rarely transformed into formal written policies at the child care centre level. Delivery options Three delivery options for the future were discussed at the roundtable: Community based implementation through a provincial NGO; Integration in the provinces’ Early Childhood curriculum delivered by licensed colleges; National Web site – online training. HSDS White Paper offers details on each option and some costs estimates. All proposed scenarios could be delivered  independently, but participants agreed that the most efficient approach would be a multi-pronged approach delivery of all the three options. From the start, the program has been managed by the RSFS, even though this kind of project is beyond the scope of its mandate. There are community organizations, in Saskatchewan and New Brunswick, whose mandate is linked to the goals of HSDS and discussions are already under way to identify which ones would be willing and able to play a leadership role for the long term delivery of HSDS. HSDS and RSFS have 18 months to take into consideration the numerous recommendations action items proposed by its key partners at this very productive roundtable. To consult the various documents presented and watch the Zoom recording of the day, please visit the Roundtable Web Page.  <      

Sustaining Healthy Start – Beyond 2020 is an important knowledge sharing forum about the impact of the Healthy Start/Départ santé initiative and its future. It will offer a creative and synergistic experience for  partners, supporters and connectors in the health and early years networks. We hope to engage as many knowledge mobilisers as possible! When: September 26, 2018 – 9:00 am to 2:30 pm Where: U of R – Language Institute, Room 215 3737 Wascana Parkway Regina Visit the event’s page for more details.