What happens when a child from a home with no English, a very different culture, and little money arrives in Kindergarten in Oakville?
Even by Grade 5, such children are still behind. The situation is made worse if they have additional challenges, such as a disability, autism, or hearing loss.
HIPPY (Home Instruction for Parents of Preschool Youngsters) Halton, a United Way agency, seeks to level the playing field for such children, aged 3 to 5, to give them a fighting chance at success in Canada: to help them reach their real potential.
Based on an international programme that originated at the University of Jerusalem in 1968, HIPPY now operates in 15 countries and in seven languages. In Germany, Australia and New Zealand, governments fund the operations.
HIPPY came to the attention of Oakville’s June Cockwell, who founded HIPPY Oakville, now HIPPY Halton, in 2006.
HIPPY assists new immigrant mothers and their children prepare for success in Canada and helps their moms become a strong voice in their communities. HIPPY also serves vulnerable and isolated families who may be experiencing financial or medical stressors.
The challenges of immigration can bring many stressors. Hadani (not her real name), who arrived from Pakistan with a three-year-old, soon found herself divorced due to the financial and cultural disruption of the move. In social housing, her child was kicking and biting, to the point, she could not even take him to the library across the road, one of the few activities nearby and financially accessible. Under Ontario Works rules, she had to work, becoming a cashier at a major chain store. The salary meant she lost much of her subsidy, but her costs were now higher. The law meant she could not quit and return to welfare. With HIPPY’s support and counselling, she persevered and pushed herself, rising to a supervisory and eventually management position. Now she has her own car and no subsidy, and the son who couldn’t even go across the road to the library is in his final year of high school, is working and has his driver’s licence.
This is a typical HIPPY success story. HIPPY changed Hadani’s life. In a new country with no family around to guide or help her, HIPPY home visits were critical. HIPPY Home Visitors, who are often HIPPY graduates, make weekly visits to deliver HIPPY’s scripted programme, which teaches pre-reading, pre-writing and pre-math skills.
HIPPY provides Canadian picture books, activity packages, and stationery supplies for the program. Home visitors also teach mothers about reading to children and different role-playing situations. Children without dexterity toys or colouring books will lack the eye-hand coordination necessary to keep up in kindergarten. HIPPY supplies these resources along with ideas as to how to use them. Families struggling for food, rent and fuel can’t afford these things on their own.
In many cultures, children are brought up to be good and quiet, barely seen and never heard. Imagine the shock when they arrive in the hustle and bustle of a Canadian kindergarten. HIPPY arranges a group meeting every two weeks, where the parents and children can share their experiences and strategies for coping with this kind of change before children enter kindergarten.
At the end of each year, HIPPY even holds a Celebration of Learning at the Y. The party is planned to give the children a Canadian child’s party experience. The children enjoy a bouncy castle and a clown, pizza and cake just like their school friends have done!
The years before kindergarten are critical to the success children can experience in school. With United Way support, HIPPY Halton gives them and their parents a hand up. HIPPY staff understand the families’ needs and stresses as they have often experienced them too. Home Visitors are paid a living wage, trained, and often transition to a higher-level job. HIPPY gives them that hard-to-obtain first Canadian work experience and a reference. They not only benefit themselves but also are better support for their children as a result.
“We are very grateful to the United Way,” says June. “Their support, along with that of Halton Region and Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada helps fund our core expenses, and unlike other grantors, we have some flexibility in how we use United Way funds. Their process for entrusting us with money also comes with credibility for other donors, who have confidence that we are a responsible agency.” June also cites the United Way for bringing the leaders of different agencies together to discuss common issues, such as vaccination policies, staffing and governance, so that the agencies don’t have to spend their resources re-inventing the wheel.
HIPPY also delivers the SMART (Supporting Mothers and Raising Toddlers) programme for pre-schoolers, 18 months to 3 years. Both programmes work to remove the barriers children face in starting school with a chance of thriving there. From financial, cultural, linguistic, disability, and autism challenges to the medically fragile, like a child needing cochlear implants to hear properly, HIPPY finds ways to overcome the disadvantages immigration, abuse, or poverty create.
A wonderful example of Oakville, the City that calls itself a Town, really operating as a village, HIPPY is a key component of keeping our community happy, prosperous, kind and safe. You can support HIPPY by donating to the United Way.
Many of us have charities we support for personal reasons. However, there is a wide variety of needs in our community. The United Way goes to great lengths to identify these needs and find and assist vital agencies with good processes to address them. United Way funds mean these agencies can spend more of their resources helping Oakville residents and less of them looking for money. As donors, we can’t know the best way to spread our donations around, but donations of all sizes from many Oakvilleans can be turned to their best effect through the United Way. And who knows when we, or someone close to us, will need help from one of these services. Our donations to the United Way ensure they will all be there for us if that day comes.