Prairie Headstart groups share program information

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Members from Headstart Programs across Canada have been selected to go on fact-finding missions to other communities offering the same program.

Of the 80 Headstart programs operating across the nation, and the 22 in Alberta, the Lac La Biche Regional Awasisak and Family Development Circle Association has been selected by Health Canada to swap ideas with the Headstart program in Buffalo Narrows, Sask. The Indigenous cultural exchange began on Nov. 16.

The Headstart programs offer Aboriginal children up to the age of four a learning experience that will prepare them for entrance into the grade school setting. The programs vary, but all offer Native cultural, historical and language components, along with physical, intellectual, social and spiritual programming.

In the Lac La Biche Region, Headstart programs are operated out of the town, the Kikino Metis Settlement and the Buffalo Lake Metis Settlement. The programs have been operating since federal funding was made available three years ago.

Ernie Sehn is the CEO of the Awasisak and Family Development Circle Association. It oversees the operation of the three programs and the 81 children registered in them. Sehn is very happy to see the local group take part in the exchange with Buffalo Narrows.

"It will let us see the similarities and differences between the communities," said Sehn. "The idea is to take two different parts of Canada and let them exchange and learn from each other."

What the local and Saskatchewan groups hope to accomplish is an even better system of delivery. That system affects not only the children enrolled in the classes, but also the parents, families and entire communities who see and feel the benefits of the programs.

Tilda Heron, the supervisor at Buffalo Lake Aboriginal Headstart, was one of the three who made the trip to Buffalo Narrows.

With the Saskatchewan program only one year old, Heron said the Alberta group was able to pass on a lot of advice to help them get through their growing pains.

"We helped them out with their one year problems. We had them too," said Heron. "We now know what we need and what we want, and we just passed that on."

Heron said the visit to Buffalo Narrows, a community that has a high population of Metis people, was not just to gather and give information about the Headstart programs. It was to help preserve a culture.

"It is a large Metis community and they are losing a lot of their culture. They want to get it back," she said.

Part of that cultural revival can be found in the Headstart programming which is being shared.

The Lac La Biche Regional Headstart program has made great headway in the three years it has been operating, said Sehn, adding that it is a part of the Aboriginal community.

If you want to see just how important it is, just try to remove it from the community, he said.

The current national Headstart program is offered to Aboriginal children living in an urban or non-reserve setting. Recent funding announcements from the federal government call for $25 million for the Headstart program to be extended to on-reserve children.