Our StrongStart BC programs provide school-based early learning services for parents and their children aged 0-5. More than 33,000 children and their families utilize these free drop-in services every year.
As part of the Families First agenda, we are committed to making our StrongStart programs even better. Please help by answering these questions:
What suggestions do you have for improving the StrongStart programs, resources, facilities, and access?- What did you as a parent or a caregiver get out of your StrongStart experience?
- What do you think your child got out of the experience?
StrongStart works much better when the principal is involved all the time. I’ve seen programs where the principal stops in every day, reads a story and knows the families’ names. This is essential to building relationships from the first time families walk through the door.
I have also been in a school where the principal still calls the program SmartStart and forgets the facilitator works at the school. There is a very different feel to the program when it is treated like an outside agency.
My daughter started school feeling like it was already “her” school. She didn’t know SS was not “school”. It gave her confidence and excitement to take the next step.
I for one LOVE the Strong Start program. It could use a bit more access to resources but I think it is great. I have 3 kids, I wish there was something like this for my first 2 children. I was apart of the Strong Start Family for 3 1/2 years and I still stop into say HI.
For me the program brought back the love and Passion I once had for children, gave me new Ideas, a small community of parents sharing ideas and stories. Now I am going to school to become a Strong Start Teacher.
For my daughter she found friends, she loves songs, music, stories and crafts, all the things I ran out of ideas on. Skills such as writing, cutting, matching, and even cleaning up. It also gave her confidence for when she entered in to the “big” school kindergarten . She still sings songs from it. This program gave her a GREAT start to school, she loves school, and learning.
This isn’t a daycare, you as a parent are required to play get dirty and have some Fun, maybe even learn something new yourself. Yes I am low income so it is Great that it is Free but it also gives new Comers to the community somewhere to met new people. Even people that have lived in the community met new people get new friends. This is about spending QUALITY Time with your child/children while learning.
I believe that a program like this should be in Every Provence in Canada. It gives the kids a great start to school, yes there are preschools out there but they don’t all teach what the children want to learn, my daughter was ready to print her name at 3 but preschool was not going to teach her that. So I kept going to Strong Start, she learnt to print her name as well as more, and not all parents can afford to pay for preschool but if you are a stay at home mom Strong Start is GREAT.
Keep up the GREAT WORK with this program. The only thing I think we need to improve on is Advertising or Getting the Word out there that there is a Great program like this.
I attended a StrongStart Program with my children a few years ago and I was disappointed to see (at least, this was my impression) that all of the children in attendance were from very loving and fortunate families (e.g., the same kind of kids and parents I saw attending nursery rhyme and baby yoga classes, etc. at the local library). My thought was: “why is the government inadvertently directing precious resources, through this program, at children who are already being very well cared for and intellectually indulged by their own loving families?” Wouldn’t it be better (just one example) for the government to direct these financial resources to mental health services for struggling children and youth, as I understand that only one in seven children/youth who have been diagnosed with a mental health disorder receive any treatment services whatsoever.
Perhaps StrongStart (I say ‘perhaps’ because I may be wrong in my assessment of the program’s value) is just another ‘Big Bird’ … cute and fuzzy and a ‘nice to have’ … but not at taxpayer’s expense.
Whoops – may have misstated the facts – I think I read that approx. one out of every seven children/youth in BC is likely to have some form of mental illness, with only about 15% of these children/youth getting any form of MH service whatsoever. [Experts - please correct me further if I am still wrong]
StrongStart is for any family that wishes to engage their child in early learning opportunities and experiences. All children benefit from these experiences, including ones that are deemed “at-risk”.
Yes Mike; however, given limited government resources, we need to align resources to the programs which can result in the greatest positive outcomes for society. Providing a child who is already richly indulged (perhaps already over-indulged) in stimulating learning opportunities is likely to result in almost no additional net benefit for society, while spending more money on identifying and helping children who have mental health issues can result in enormous positive benefits/outcomes for society.
We think the StrongStart Program is a welcoming and strengthening program for Families with young children. We would like to see more collaboration with Family Resource Programs that have the same Drop-In as their core program. Drop- In format removes barriers to attendance, and better builds community, so we would not like to see the restictive suggestions of the previous writers.
Having portables at all schools(every neighbourhood)for Family Resource Programs and StrongStart Programs to deliver their excllent services in a collaborative way would best suit the families of the community. Outdoor and indoor programming and neighbourhood delivery of programs would alleviate the overcrowding.
I think StrongStart is a great program for young children, but agree that it is always full/overcrowded. It is difficult for the children/parents to move around freely without banging into each other.
I suggest there be a more formal registration process where parents are able to register their children for 2-3 days per week (pre-selecting the days). This way numbers can be limited (12-14 kids) and children and parents can participate more fully in all of the activities being offered. There should also be a rule of one accompanying adult per child.
If certain school’s StrongStart programs are so popular, it would be great if some could offer separate morning and afternoon sessions.
My family loves the Strong Start Program. I have brought both of my daughter’s to the program. My oldest daughter is now in school so she no longer attends. Although we did preschool for my oldest daughter, the Strong Start program is in my daughter’s elementary school, so it was a great introduction too her elementary school. The teacher at our centre is wonderful and engages the children and always provides a great range of activites for the children to do. We opted out of preschool this year for my youngest daughter as I felt that she was getting a similar experience at StrongStart and I really enjoy being able to spend that time with her.
One thing that is disappointing is the capacity. The class often fills up within 15 mins of it starting. The problem is, is that there is no way of knowing if the class is full or not. So many familes struggle to get their children organized in the morning, get to the centre and find out that it is full. I know this has happened to us on several occasions and my daughter is devastated when she gets turned away.
My suggestion would be to have some sort of on line registeration, that way families could pre-register and know if class was full. If families don’t show up within 30 mins of class starting, even if they registered on line, then they would loose thier spot.