Day-care workers partner in unique program
Darrell Greer
Northern News Services
Rankin Inlet (Feb 28/01) - Staff at the Kataujaq Day-Care Centre in Rankin Inlet and the Shared Care Day Care in Arviat are learning from each other.
The two have teamed up for a staff exchange program funded through the Kivalliq Aboriginal Training Fund and the Child Care program administered through Kivalliq Partners in Development.
Cheryl Colbourne, Arviat's early childhood co-ordinator, says day care programs are the hardest to obtain funding for and it's virtually impossible to secure money for staff training.
"Day care staff usually end up watching people from other programs travel for training," says Colbourne.
"The Kataujak Society's Evelyn Thordarson asked me if I'd be willing to help train her staff during a meeting in Iqaluit and the idea of an exchange program evolved from that."
Colbourne says workers will be exposed to a different environment at the two day cares.
"About 90 per cent of our clients are subsidized, while Kataujaq only has one or two subsidized clients.
"It's a completely different type of day when you have different social and economic clientele you're drawing from and it's good for workers at both centres to be exposed to those differences."
Arviat has the only Northern day care to offer the Small Steps Early Intervention special needs program funded by Health Canada under the Community Actions program for children.
"Rankin has three or four special needs children who haven't been properly assessed and we're going to help them develop that program.
"This gives my staff an almost totally different perspective in a community only a hop, skip and a jump away by plane."
Thordarson wrote the proposal to secure program funding when she felt it was time to become more proactive.
"What happens all too often is that you go to these big meetings and you always hear there should be more information sharing and training in day care," says Thordarson.
"Then everybody goes home, forgets about it and nothing ever gets done.
"This time I decided to go after the funding to make something happen locally."
Three staff members from Rankin and two from Arviat exchanged places for two weeks in February and four more will exchange places in March.
"Basically, the program is an exchange of knowledge and information which should benefit both day cares."
