A small crowd gathers before the start of the talk Tuesday afternoon (Michael Joel-Hansen/paNOW Staff)

By Michael Joel-Hansen

Childhood Development

Community organization hopes to educate about importance of early years

May 28, 2019 | 5:05 PM

A community group wants to get its members thinking about early childhood development.

Prince Albert Community Network Coalition (CNC) put on a knowledge exchange featuring speakers from a number of organizations, who spoke on several topics from early brain development and trauma, to what services are currently available to help parents with young children.

Donna Strauss, who is executive director with Prince Albert Family Futures and co-chair of the early childhood council, said it is important education is available to teach parents about children’s early development.

“Things that happen to us prenatally to age five affect the trajectory of who we will become as adults,” she said.

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Strauss, who was scheduled to be the first speaker of the day

said she hoped people would take away more knowledge about how young children can be effected by their environment early on. Strauss added many people are not aware about how certain things can shape young kids.

“We know that stress has a big effect on children, even prenatal stress has a big effect on brain development,” she said.

Strauss said getting the chance to speak as well provided her group the chance to talk about what they have planned going forward. This includes a family resource centre, which will aim to help families with kids who are at the early impressionable ages.

“It will really target families with children under five, it will be a gathering place a bit on an indoor playground for young children as well as giving them access to other resources and supports that they might need,” she said.

Delphine Melchert, coordinator of CNC said the organization chose to focus on early childhood development after consulting with their members, who expressed an interest to learn more.

“It’s a great opportunity for the community to come and learn some things that they didn’t know about early childhood development and how foundational it is to our community,” she said.

In organizing the event, Melchert and CNC worked with the Early Childhood Council (ECC), which helped bring together the speakers. The speakers were from a variety of organizations ranging from the Ministry of Education to community service groups. The talk took place at the Prince Albert Arts Centre.

Melchert said the CNC has a diverse membership working in a number of areas, who may benefit from learning about the variety of services on offer.

“Many of our members are frontline workers who work in different groups and organizations, we also have people from the business community,” she said.

According to Melchert there were 60 people signed up to come to hear the speakers. This included nursing students from the University of Saskatchewan. Melchert said she hopped those who in attendance would come away with more awareness about early childhood development and its importance.

“How can we make this happen and the role that each of us can play, that we’re all responsible, it doesn’t matter who we are and where we’re working,” she said.

MichaelJoel.Hansen@jpbg.ca

On Twittere: @mjhskcdn