The southeast is the only area in the province where the Early Childhood Intervention Program (ECIP) is offered through the local school divisions, and for the Holy Family Roman Catholic Separate School Division, it provides an invaluable service in helping to prepare at-risk children for school.
The board of trustees for Holy Family heard a presentation from Shannon Culy, who spoke about what services ECIP provides and how they are able to help preschool children.
“We provide home-based services with a qualifier: the children are at risk of or are experiencing developmental delays,” said Culy.
She noted that oftentimes when they are with a family in the home working with a child, they will take note of younger siblings who may also have developmental delays of some sort, and they will monitor them for development in case their services might be needed also.
The ECIP program is provided in the communities with Holy Family schools, in Estevan, Weyburn, Radville and Wilcox, and this is the same in Southeast Cornerstone for their school communities.
ECIP is family-centred and child-focussed, and the workers believe in the full inclusion of the family in every part of their program as they work with a child.
“ECIP understands that all families are unique,” said Culy, as they seek to ensure all children can transition into classes at school.
“All families have the capacity to meet the developmental needs of their children,” added Culy, noting this is the core belief of the ECIP workers as they meet with families.
One of the staff members, Tessa Young, has developed a drop-in play time for parents with at-risk preschool children, where they can come in and play and get some of the socialization they need.
“Where the idea came from is a lot of our kids are transitioning into the pre-K program, so I started a drop-in and play program, and some of these kids have transitioned now into pre-K or kindergarten,” said Culy, noting the average age of ECIP children used to be three to four, but now the average age is two to three.
“We try to get them as young and as early as we can, and we’re keeping them on our caseload longer also,” said Culy.
The four core services of ECIP are: family support and capacity building; child development; transition support, with the biggest connection to the schools; and community development, such as taking part in early learning fairs.
“In Estevan in October, we had an early learning fair at St. Mary’s, and had 15 or 16 agencies come to the gym. They provide services from birth to five years, so parents could become familiar with what’s available in Estevan,” said Culy.
The advantage of being offered through the school divisions (unlike any other area of the province) is they can help at-risk children make the transition into school, such as arranging for inter-agency interviews. They have also done consultation in community settings, such as meeting with a family at the Family Place in Weyburn or at day care settings in Estevan, where “we can tell families what we can do to help them with support and guidance.”
The schools hold their pre-kindergarten selections, and ECIP workers are a part of the selection process, but the final decision for these classes lie with the school staff.
Culy noted one instance where a high-needs child was only three and so was too young for pre-kindergarten, so from February to June, ECIP worker Tessa Young was able to provide socialization for the child and it didn’t tax the school resources at all.
Holy Family’s ECIP program has had a full caseload since the 2014-15 school year, and while for a couple of those years there were waiting lists, Culy said she was happy that for this year, there is no waiting list of children unable to get the services, and there is a caseload of 20 children.
“We’ve worked hard on that,” she said, noting that in the years where was a waiting list of up to 10 children, it was because there was limited staffing, and they only had time to deal with a certain size caseload.
Other ECIP staff elsewhere in the province don’t have the connection with the schools that they do here in the southeast, said Culy, adding there is another advantage: “It’s a bonus for us being in the schools, because we don’t have the overhead costs that other programs do.”
