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2001 Annual Meeting Presentation
The George Hull Centre Annual General Meeting
June 18, 2001
Guest Speaker: The Honourable Margaret Norrie McCain, Co-Author, The Early Years Report
The Early Years Report
Thank you for inviting me here tonight to talk about the Early Years report – an important initiative – not only for Ontario but for all of Canada.
Before I begin, I would like to commend The George Hull Centre on the work it is doing for children and families.
Over the past 16 years you have not only developed programmes designed to deal with a large number of severe problems ranging from substance abuse to school avoidance and from family breakdown to disruptive behaviour, you have also set up a number of important research initiatives. These initiatives, together with your internationally renowned teaching programmes, are having an impact on children and families far beyond the borders of Mississauga, Ontario and even Canada.
Because of your concerns and commitment, professionals as well as people in your community, have developed a greater understanding of the problems faced by modern families.
As the Early Years Study group learned, many of these problems have arisen as a result of change brought about by the Technological Revolution.
But let me start by the beginning by explaining that tonight I would like to focus on three pieces of information which propelled the Early Years Study forward.
They are
- the Socio-Economic story
- the Neuro Science story
- the Gradient story
- First the Socio-Economic story which outlines the profound impact that the Technological Revolution has had on society.
John Maynard Keynes, the renowned economist of the last century, predicted during the Great Depression, that, by the year 2030, people would be far better off materially while having to work fewer hours.
Keynes got the first part right but his second prediction was completely wrong. If he had been able to look into a crystal ball into the year 2001, he would have seen that the technology we welcomed with open arms – computers, faxes, emails, voicemails, cell phones – have not eased the burden on human performances. On the contrary – they have placed increased pressure on human productivity and capability. The drive to produce more; to produce better; to produce faster and to produce cheaper, forces men and women to work harder, longer and more intensely in order to stay ahead of the competition. This competition can come from other workers at home or in Third World countries or from a piece of software that threatens to take over their jobs.
This applies to men and women at all levels. The higher you go up the income scale the harder and longer you have to work and the greater the pressure you face to compete in the global marketplace. At the same time, people in what are considered routine jobs have to work longer and longer in order to stay employed; to stay above the poverty line and to maintain the standard of living they knew 10, 20 or 30 years ago.
The Vanier Institute for the Family recently reported that men and women today have to work 60 hours a week to maintain the same standard of living enjoyed by people in the 1950’s working only 40 hours a week.
Workers today can never go into cruising mode, relax or feel comfortable in the knowledge that their job or career is safe. Women are in the workforce in increasing numbers. Some are there to supplement their spouse’s shrinking income or to provide the enrichments they want for their children’s development – culture, recreation, sports, travel. Other women are in the workforce because of the rewards and benefits. They cherish their financial independence.
Success today is no longer predicted on strength and endurance but rather on knowledge, skills and innovation and in these areas women bring a wealth of talent and capability.
Yes, women are in the workforce to stay. Sixty-five percent of mothers with pre-school children are working outside the home and many parents are away from home up to 12 hours a day. And even when they are at home they are still connected to the office because technology has blurred the lines between workplace and home.
Work has invaded the sanctity of home and family life, intruding on relationships with spouses, children and friends.
Never before have parents been so stressed and stretched. One of the greatest concerns expressed to us by parents during the Early Years Study was the challenge of finding a balance between work and family.
There is no shortage of information on how to be a good parent. The challenge is how do you find time to be a good parent.
Productivity driven by innovation is the key force in the Technological Age. It follows, therefore, that how our children develop into competent, productive, innovative members of our future workforce is of critical importance both for individual and national success. Let me quote to you from the book “Developmental Health and the Wealth of Nations” written by Dr. Dan Keating of the University of Toronto and Dr. Clyde Hertzman of UBC. The authors state categorically “economic growth today is dependent on becoming a learning society built on the developmental health of its population. The role of developmental health is critical to lifelong health, learning and competence. Learning societies focus on promoting developmental health and making use of human resources to achieve success as a knowledge economy and a democratic society.”
When does human development begin? It begins at birth – indeed at conception.
Into this view of the new economic landscape, let me now place the Neuro Science Story. It has been called “the most powerful and compelling piece of information ever to emerge about human development.”
Up until 10 or 15 years ago, it was believed that the architecture of the brain was set at birth by a person’s individual genetic programming and that a child’s experiences before the age of three had limited impact on his or her later development.
However, with the help of new technologies, such as CatScans and MRI’s, coupled with major longitudinal studies in developmental psychology, medical scientists now know that the brain is not fully formed a birth. A tremendous amount of brain development occurs from conception to year three. This early brain development is interactive, rapid and dramatic and far more influenced by early experiences than we ever believed.
A baby is born with billions of neurons that will, over the first three to four years, form connections called synapses to form eight neural pathways. This happens in response to stimulation from touch, taste, sight, sound, smell, temperature, movement and pain.
We call the process “the wiring of the brain” and it is very much influenced by experiences.
Positive stimulation from good nutrition and nurturance such as touching, cuddling, singing and exploring will enhance the wiring process. Reading is especially important because it stimulates five to eight neural pathways.
On the other side of the coin, living in a negative environment – one marred by family violence or neglect – can impede the optimal wiring of the brain. The negative stimulation which comes from living in a chaotic, abusive environment – whether the child experiences abuse directly or indirectly as a witness – inflicts serious and often permanent brain damage. Living in an environment characterized by fear, anxiety and stress impedes the wiring of the brain.
I don’t have to tell the people in this room that negative early experiences create deficits. At The George Hull Centre you work every day with children, young people and adults who have suffered serious difficulties in their early years. You know that the latency effects of these deficits go with a person into adulthood, requiring a multitude of services over the life cycle. It is possible to minimize or eliminate the problems that arise from early life deficits but it is much more difficult and much more expensive.
Studies tell us that the single biggest factor in a child’s health development is THE QUALITY OF PARENTING.
This presents us with a paradox. In the technological age, when human development and productivity is considered critical to individual and national success and parenting has been identified as the most important factor in human development, the new economy is placing heavier and heavier burdens on parents to fulfill their role.
The third piece of evidence – The Gradient Story – shows that all parents are faced with this challenge and all children are affected.
Gradients give us a reading of outcomes – (in this case, children’s outcomes) on several significant indicators such as low birth weights, cognitive skills and developmental levels measured through socio-economic status.
It is commonly believed that children who exhibit the greatest difficulties are those living in poverty and it is true that these children do have the highest risk factors. Thirty-five percent of children in the lowest income quartile are having difficulty. But we have to consider the other side of the story – the good news – 65 percent are turning out well.
At the other end of the spectrum – in the highest income quartile, 21 percent of children are doing poorly. And the largest number of children not doing well is in the middle class.
These results are surprising to many people, especially to politicians and policymakers who prefer to “target” their initiatives toward those they define as “at risk”.
The important thing to remember about the Gradient Story is that there is no point on the scale where putting more money toward the problem will eliminate it.
Dr. Dan Offord, director of the Centre for Study of Children at Risk at McMaster University, says that adding money alone will only reduce the problems for children living in poverty by 10 percent. If money alone provided the solution (which it doesn’t) all children in the lowest income bracket would be doing poorly and all those from well-off families would be doing well. THAT IS NOT THE CASE.
Today’s parents need help in fulfilling their role but money alone, education and parenting information alone, nutrition and environmental programmes alone, literacy programmes alone will not significantly improve children’s outcomes.
Measures such as these must be partnered with other initiatives designed to address the needs of all children and their parents.
There is a mismatch between opportunity and investment in the way our society supports families with young children. We invest very little in the early years when the brain is most malleable. We invest much more in the later stages of life – years 6 to 18. And much of this money is spent on trying to deal with learning, behaviour and health problems, many of which can be traced back to early childhood.
Given that the technological age is here to stay with its increasingly severe effects on families and children; given that the healthy development of children is very important to the health and wealth of our nation; given that the neuro-science evidence tells us how important the early years are in laying the foundations for healthy development, with good parenting the primary factory – the EYR lays out a plan for an Early Child Development system to support all children in the years 0 to 6 and their parents.
The Centrepiece of this system is to be a continuum of Early Child Development and Parenting Centres to serve all children in Ontario.
The Centres must be child oriented and parent oriented. They must include child care and education based on problem solving (experienced based) learning through play.
They must also include: -education programmes for both parents and children, -parent support including non-parental care arrangements, -nutrition, toy and library resources, -home visitation/home satellites.
They must also reflect the culture, the character and the needs of each individual community.
Staffing of these centres is of primary importance. They must be staffed by professionals who have been trained to identify children with special needs and who can make referrals for appropriate interventions.
We believe the system must grow from the grass roots up with communities, taking ownership of human development within an “over-arching umbrella” of government policies, principles and standards.
The bottom line is that we want to make life less stressful for all parents – whether they work inside or outside the home – so that they can better fulfill their parental role. But we certainly do not call for a return to “the old days” when we had one parent, usually the father, at work and the other, usually the mother, at home. That will never happen. The technological revolution precludes it. There is no turning back to old jobs, old securities, old families and old communities.
Communities must be important partners in the development of the ECD system. Various sectors will have to come together to build bridges and partnerships to support children and families. The nature and quality of a community play an important role in how children develop.
What has been happening since the EYR was released two years ago?
Well, it has certainly generated a great deal of attention. There has been an avalanche of requests for copies of the report from across the country and around the world. We recently met with a man from Australia where the federal government is putting $240,000 into ECD. A number of provincial governments, as well as the federal government, have asked to meet with Dr. Mustard and/or me and I am pleased to report that the EYR was the basis for the $2.5 billion earmarked for early child development in the health plan signed in September 2000 by Canada’s first ministers. And the Ontario government is taking action on this initiative.
Five Early Years Demonstration Projects have been set up across the province. Their purpose is to showcase on-the-ground parent and children programmes that are currently working effectively as well as to assess how much additional early years programming is required. The projects will also test elements of the EY vision for early child development and parenting programmes that are contingent on support from the business, charitable and volunteer sectors. Project leaders have been asked to develop a plan for how additional community programming could be created over the next five years involving support from all sectors.
On December 6 of last year, the government, launched a $30 million Early Years Challenge Fund. This fund will support creative, innovative initiatives that draw upon the resourcefulness of communities and will provide grants to match eligible contributions from partners such as the business, voluntary and charitable sectors.
Communities from across the province, supported by a local Community Co-ordinator, will be able to submit proposals for matching contributions from the fund. Local initiatives must be tailored to meet the individual needs of the community and they must focus on one or more of the following areas:
1. Pre-and post-natal care;
2. Early Childhood Development Centres;
3. Parenting support;
4. Community development to support early childhood development.
Last year, the Atkinson Foundation, a private foundation, established a million dollar challenge fund for communities that develop an integrated plan for ECD.
Interest shown in the EYR, both nationally and internationally, will serve as a driver to move the Ontario agenda forward. British Columbia, Manitoba and PEI are all well along in the process of establishing an early years system.
People all over the world are beginning to recognize that ensuring children get off to a good start in life so that they can attain their optimal potential and competence is vitally important – not only for the individual child and his or her family but to the whole of society.
Foundation blocks laid in the early years determine how children will function throughout their life cycles. Unless we are prepared to provide this firm foundation, society will continue to pay a higher and higher price. The resulting deficits will continue to translate into enormous human and economic costs.
I would like to close by quoting Dr. Jack Shonkoff, Dean of the Florence Heller Graduate School at Brandeis University in the US. Commenting on a report entitled “From Neurons to Neighbourhoods: The Science of Early Childhood Development” Dr. Shonkoff said “work and family life are changing dramatically, yet children’s needs are not being addressed – this is about separating fact from fiction and sharing responsibility to promote the well-being of babies and young children.”
I applaud the work you are doing here at The George Hull Centre. I know that every day you are faced with what sometimes seem to be insurmountable obstacles but I urge you to keep on speaking for those who can’t speak for themselves; to keep on providing a loving and safe environment for those who live with fear and stress and to keep on making a difference in the lives of our most vulnerable citizens.
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