Recent statistics provided to Richmond Municipal Council from those who administer early intervention services show there is work to do in Richmond County.
During the regular monthly meeting in Arichat on Nov. 28, Olivia Melnick, with Early Childhood Development Intervention Services, told council that the municipality has one of the highest rates in the Strait area of children requiring their services.
Melnick told council they provide specialized services to families of young children with developmental delays from birth to school entry. She said they provide services for children who may be diagnosed with autism, cerebral palsy, or experiencing general developmental delay.
Early intervention serves children with delays in two or more areas of development, who have an established diagnosis, or have a biological risk for developmental delay, said Melnick.
Since most children don’t have a diagnosis when they enter their services, Melnick said typically they’re first on the scene. If a family is having concerns with the child’s development (if they’re not speaking or walking when they should be), she said they are the first people are called then they connect families with any additional specialized services they may need.
Melnick said their core services include child development support, family support and capacity building, transition support, and case coordination and partnerships.
Melnick said they can help with food security issues, or housing concerns, and help find assistance for families. She said one of their biggest programs is transition to school to help schools get ready to receive children. Daycares may not be available to some of the children they transition to school, so she said this could be their first time being away from their families.
Early intervention also supports different transitions, such as hospital to home, or home to daycare, noted Melnick.
Melnick said they can get referrals from parents, pediatricians, daycare providers, and teachers.
The Early Developmental Instrument (EDI) is administered by teachers, said Melnick. She said the EDI is split into: physical health and wellbeing; social competence; emotional maturity; language and cognitive development; communication skills; and general knowledge.
Between September and December, Melnick said the teachers get to know the children, then the EDI is administered in the new year, allowing the child to get accustomed to routines at school, to get the most accurate picture of where those children are in their development. She said the teacher will fill out one of these surveys for each of the children.
The physical health and wellbeing category looks at whether the kids are independent, fed, tidy, and rested; social competence measures how they interact with others; emotional maturity gauges their concentration, helping others, showing patience, and are not frequently aggressive or angry, said Melnick. She said language and cognitive development determines if children are interested in reading and writing, using their letters and numbers, understand shapes, have communication skills and general knowledge, and the ability to tell stories and communicate with adults and other children.
Melnick said once the results are submitted, the numbers are compared across Canada, and broken down by county and community, to get an idea of what is being done right and what needs improvement.
For children under the Strait Regional Centre for Education, Melnick said the two highest levels of need are around language and communication.
In 2013, 2018, and 2020, Melnick said the highest rates of vulnerable children under the Strait Regional School Board (SRCE) were from Richmond County.
Warden Amanda Mombourquette acknowledged that, “Richmond County is coming up on top of a pile that we don’t want to be on the top of consistently.”
District 3 Councillor Melanie Sampson called the numbers “very concerning” and asked how the municipality can help support their work, suggesting they can provide information on the municipality’s website.
Along with other community groups, Melnick said they want to work with municipalities and service providers to address these needs.
Melnick responded that they target segments of the population in which children are most at risk, such as low income households. She said other municipalities have held events to identify and connect children to resources as early as possible, such as community health fairs. She said early intervention tries other ways to get information out to parents like flyers at food banks and doctor’s offices.
While they have been getting more referrals from some parts of Richmond County, Melnick said there is more to be done, adding there are children showing up in Primary not toilet trained or still feeding from bottles.
The infrastructure is in place to assist families and children with developmental vulnerabilities; there are trained people ready and able, there are programs to access, and there are organizations and partnerships that can administer this help, but not enough people are using these services.
It seems the big challenge is reaching those families and children in need early enough so this assistance can make a difference.
Perhaps more can be done to raise general public awareness about the help available and more can be done to reach out to segments of the population most in need. During last month’s council meeting, entities like community television stations, social media, and websites were mentioned as ways to get the word out, but there was no mention of employing the reach of newspapers, radio stations, and other media outlets.
There are usually unexplored ideas, new methods, and technological applications that can arise, seemingly out of nowhere, to offer some solutions. Whatever the course of action taken, it appears outside the box thinking might provide some answers.
And there’s little time to spare. There continues to be unacceptably high numbers of children who need help but aren’t receiving it, and the situation is not improving.