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While making changes over the last few months, Memphré en Mouvement...partners for 0-17 year olds! has carried on with its mission, reflections and actions. In the current context, concertation and collaboration are all the more important! Again this year, we requested and received support in the amount of $202,000 from Québec en Forme, for our Healthy Lifestyles plan, and $265,395 from Avenir d’enfants, for our plan to help 0-5 year olds! However, the funding provided by these two organizations is scheduled to end soon. As expected, Québec en Forme will suspend its activities in 2017. Therefore, the time has come to ensure that our work and efforts, now and in the future, focus on change objectives that will have a lasting impact on the lives of 0-17 year olds. From the beginning, we’ve been working hard to develop actions that will last, either because they: -spur communities to change their practices and to put into place sustainable environments that promote healthy lifestyles habits or childhood development; -allow children and their parents to acquire new skills, which we suspect will help them maintain healthy lifestyle habits throughout their lives; -support communities as they adopt new rules and policies aimed at developing environments that foster healthy lifestyle habits or the development of 0-5 year olds; -increase public awareness and act on the social norm, thereby directly impacting the decisions each of us makes on a daily basis to support the wellbeing of 0-17 year olds... As you can see, we’ve already done quite a bit to ensure sustainability! Nevertheless, our partners’ group is at a turning point in its life: Do we want to pursue our mission, which was redefined, a year ago, to reflect a more global and integrated approach? How will we continue to work together if we receive less money? And how will we be able to keep striving for change that will improve the wellbeing of 0-17 year olds in our MRC? This is a great opportunity to reaffirm our commitment and to mobilize for the cause we’ve chosen! We should remember that one of the objectives of the partners’ action plan for 0-5 year olds is to improve a child’s ability to relate to others in a positive way. Many actions have been put into place in the MRC to support the development of social skills. The Brindami programme, which promotes social behaviour, is an example of an action that’s been well established in a number of organizations for many years. The next training session for the programme’s early childhood workers will take place on October 5 and November 23, 2015. In addition, some actions aim to provide tools to parents so they can support their child’s social skills development. Take, for instance, the card games - developed by the Chagnon Foundation as part of its societal campaign to promote social skills - which were handed out in many communities in the Memphremagog MRC. This year, new avenues are being explored to increase awareness, among stakeholders, of the importance of social skills. To that effect, we’ll be developing a partnership with the Memphremagog Library. We’ll provide stakeholders with lists of books, from which they can choose, that deal with social skills and related topics. We’ll suggest books for parents, resource workers and children. In addition, we might organize parent/child storytelling activities that focus on a social skills theme (e.g. emotions). Finally, convinced that every stakeholder in society plays an active role in a child’s development, the partners would like to increase awareness and support of social skills among the broader community. Pascale Gendron Daigneault, ps.éd, Conseillère pédagogique en petite enfance Implementing and consolidating a common approach when it comes to understanding and accompanying vulnerable families - these are the objectives set out by the «Together, we go further» initiative. This year, efforts to implement the Parent’Aise network initiative continue. The first step was to send out surveys to several stakeholders in the MRC in order to identify the different needs in connection with this initiative. One of the surveys aims to identify the support requirements for implementing the approach, as well as the training needs of stakeholders who’ve already taken part in a Parent’Aise initiative. The other survey targets managers and aims to gauge their interest in acting as coaches to support the implementation of the approach in their communities; this survey also seeks to identify the training needs of stakeholders who have yet to take part in a Parent’Aise initiative. Once we’ve received the completed surveys, the next step will be to draw up a community training and support plan for the year 2015-2016. Moreover, the fifth edition of the Journée des intervenants, which will take place this fall, fits perfectly into this initiative, since its overall objective is to develop a shared vision of the reality and needs of vulnerable families in our MRC. The specific objectives are: -To share the results of the research on the Programme d'aide personnelle, familiale et communautaire (PAPFC 2), a personal, family and community aid program;-To discuss the results -To develop courses of action to meet the needs of vulnerable families The event will be held December 10, 2015, from 9 am. to 4 pm. Flashback to the wonderful TV season of «On jase avec Pélo», which featured all the work you did throughout the year! Each of the territories of the MRC was represented in turn. The schedule, drawn up at the start of the year, allowed for a continuum in as far as we were able to link the various healthy lifestyle actions taken by the partners with current events. As a result, we were able to promote the work that was done in our territory to offer quality services to the population. Substantial improvements were made, such as offering visitors a wider range of food options during this summer’s events. Some changes were less obvious. They include healthier choices at summer camps, a switch to a more balanced menu in cafeterias, and a better selection in grocery stores...In short, change is in the air! Given the success of this program, the date is set for another season of interviews with Gilles. We’re in the process of putting together a schedule that would allow us to begin airing in early January. You will receive a copy so that you can sign up. For the time being, we’re keeping a spot for more topical issues, but we can request an interview with Gilles any time. If some of you happened to miss the program, we’ve put all the Memphré en Mouvement capsules online on our YouTube channel. You can access them via this link or by logging onto our Facebook page... Naturally, I recommend that you subscribe to our YouTube channel, where you’ll also find tutorials on how to use some of the tools we’ve put at your disposal. See you soon on YouTube...or on Pélo’s set! Last year, we began accompanying schools as they implemented a new food policy. We started with École Brassard-St-Patrice. School administrators wanted to make changes in the cafeteria first. Therefore, the two pavilions’ food concessions took part. We studied menus, improved recipes, and worked to equip food producers with the tools they needed for the long run - the cornerstones of the process. We weren’t interested in temporary change, but rather in helping food concessions gain the skills they needed to evaluate the menus themselves. «Accommodating and adopting new practices to meet the growing demand for nutrition and diversity.» To support this initiative, the school’s Parent Participation Organization provided assistance at tasting events, and young leaders did their part by serving the food. The idea was to expose young people to new recipes and, in the process, get the parents involved by sending the recipes home for them to try. This year again, the programme will include promotional activities. In the meantime, we’d like to welcome La Retenue, a new food concession for the St- Patrice pavilion. You can already join its Facebook group, «La Retenue Café St- Patrice». You’ll find photos of its platters of the day, menus and, coming soon, recipes and tricks from its chef, Sébastien. Also, for your information, the National School Food Conference will take place in Montreal from November 12 to 14, 2015. What’s the next step in the school food policy? Implementing changes in the Brassard-St-Patrice daycare, and working with another food concession that will impact several schools! Stay tuned... As children, we used to like to ask these questions. But what if, on a more serious note, we asked the same questions about our group? Many of them have already been the subject of working and planning meetings. In wanting to know where we were headed collectively, we realized that we wanted to develop a shared understanding of sustainability. This led us not only to identify the things we’d like to see endure over time, but mainly to take stock of what we’ve already accomplished. But how do we manage this? Perhaps through a system of management, an institutionalization of structures or a change of policy. But we also need the community’s endorsement as we work to develop its capabilities and change its norms. Much like with riding a bike, regular training makes it easier to put in more effort when needed. And in exchange for that effort, you get the satisfaction of achievement. Thus, the interest lies in substantially increasing your efforts in order to be able to ride up that steep hill (I’m thinking of chemin Bice) a little faster each time. This analogy might make you smile, but it’s a fact that by developing the technical abilities of players in a system and by exploiting the group synergy, it becomes easier to produce an effort. Progressive change in the social norm, which we would like to see in our communities, requires a paradigm shift and new ways of thinking, which have already happened! All that’s missing are the resources that will allow us to sustain current and future activities. But if the dream is to survive, it needs to be kept alive, both in people’s minds and in their practices... and the resources will follow... «All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them.» -Walt Disney |
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Juillet 2017
AuteursPar ces billets, l'équipe de MeM vous tient informée de l'actualité du regroupement et de l'actualité en générale concernant les Saines Habitudes de Vie. Catégories
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