Saskatoon Early Years Roundtable

KidsFirst Saskatoon convened a Roundtable focussing on the Early Years at the Willows Country Club on December 8th of 2008. At this gathering, discussion subgroups were formed around various areas affecting our youngest citizens. These people will be regrouping at the Willows on January 27th, from 9AM to noon.

The Agenda will include:

• Summaries and updates from each of the cluster groups formed at the December 8th Roundtable.

• Short presentations from other Saskatoon Early Years inititives.

All are welcome to join us. If you wish to attend or would like more information, please contact Sydney Bell , or 655-5383

Rural Asset Inventory Strategy – (RAIS)

…a community approach to building stronger communities for children aged 0 to 6 by building on existing strengths.

There great things happening in our communities, but often we don’t notice or we focus on what needs to be fixed, and we miss that more of a ‘good thing’ can lead to less of a ‘bad thing’. The Rural Asset Inventory Strategy is about discovering what we do really well and find ways to spread these great works, especially for our younger citizens, children aged 0-6.

What are our objectives with this project?

1. To develop methods and procedures to gather, analyze and understand the internal and external assets for children ages 0-6
2. To develop a tool to capture the developmental assets of rural communities in collaboration with interested individuals from participating communities.
3. To generate recommendations based on community assets for policy makers and service providers.
4. To develop and information package to support other communities to develop local action strategies.

What can we offer?

Through a Community Initiatives Fund grant, the RAIS resources to support three communities in the rural areas of the Saskatoon Health Region to go through a process of:

1. Providing education and training on Development Assets,
2. establishing a local Steering Committee to guide the project,
3. administering the Rural Asset Inventory Strategy,
4. gathering and sort data collected,
5. hosting small group discussions to review the results of the inventory and facilitate understanding what the data means,
6. hosting Town Hall meetings open to the whole community to discuss the results and begin to build community plans and,
7. implementing actions from the locally devised plans.

The RAIS is an initiative of the Rural Early Year’s Coalition (REYC). The REYC is comprised of representatives from agencies and organizations who provide services to families with young children in rural areas of the Saskatoon Health Region and is committed to embracing an asset-based approach in working with rural communities. Through the RAIS, REYC is looking to partner with communities who are interested in identifying local assets and begin to plan to build on them.

For more information:

Sydney Bell

REYC Convenor &

KidsFirst Community Developer, Primary Health

Phone: 655-5383

Sydney.bell@saskatoonhealthregion.ca

*For more information on Developmental Assets please contact Sydney Bell or visit the Search Institute Website at: http://www.search-institute.org/

Free Asset Workshops for your community!

Everyone’s an Asset Builder and Sharing the Asset Message are fun ½ day long interactive workshops that teach people about Developmental Assets and inspire them to build assets with children in their community.

KidsFirst Saskatoon Community Developer, Sydney Bell is available to come to communities in the Saskatoon Health Region to offer these workshops free of charge.

What are Assets and why are they important?
Search Institute’s 40 Developmental Assets® are common sense, positive experiences and qualities that help influence choices young people make and help them become caring, responsible adults.

For more information about Developmental Assets check out:
http://www.search-institute.org/assets/forty.htm

Contact Sydney Bell for more information: Sydney.Bell@saskatoonhealthregion.ca or 655-5383.