Huron County's Children’s Services division and EarlyON Program Facilitators are celebrating 20 years of providing Early Learning and Parenting programs for families in Huron.
Huron's Manager of Ontario Works and Children's Services, Cheryl Patience says the program is free and is offered around the county. She says it's a Provincial program and in Huron County they have Child and Family Centres, as well as virtual activities that families can attend. Patience says there are different education components to the program as well as parenting support, learning events for children and other events that are just fun.
Patience says the program is available for children up to four years old to attend, with a caregiver, and they've been operating for twenty years. Patience says they do require a caregiver to be with the child and their staff will facilitate activities and help with learning and helping the parents. “It was actually a really important piece, even through the pandemic because we switched to virtual offerings, so then parents had a way of connecting through zoom or Facebook groups to be able to see other parents that were in the same boat, when they couldn't connect with other people.”
Patience says part of what they do is help new parents. “There are baby groups, there's also groups that help with literacy and math and preparing kids for kindergarten, parenting support groups where they can chat with one another and then our staff also assists with toilet learning or other milestones and parenting pieces that they may need assistance with.”
Ontario Early Years Centres opened their doors to families in April 2002 as part of a Provincial Government initiative to support parents in their crucial role and to acknowledge the early years as the most important learning and development period in a lifetime.
In 2018, multiple different programs, such as Ontario Early Years Centres, Parenting and Family Literacy Centres, Child Care Resource Centres and Better Beginnings, Better Futures Centres were merged to be collectively known as the EarlyON Child and Family Centres that exist today.
In Huron, there are Child & Family Centres located in Goderich, Wingham and Clinton, in addition to numerous EarlyON programs in community spaces such as libraries, community halls, churches and schools.