Back-to-school best time to think about beginnings for younger kids

BY SARA KEDDY

Kings County Register

There are some big benefits to meeting aspiring students before they walk through the school doors.

With a successful clinic last fall, screening 142 three-year-olds in eight Kings County schools, the Kings Early Years Screening Program is looking to meet even more youngsters - and help them make the transition to school with everything they need to succeed.

“I saw a need as the chief psychologist at Valley Regional Hospital - I’d done a lot of pre-school assessments and seen a lot of kids slipping through the cracks,” says Dr. Robin McGee.

Plus, she admits, “I was jealous of the folks in West Hants” who had an early screening program underway.

In 2005, McGee went to work for the Valley school board and immediately went to visit the West Hants program in action, then worked with a colleague to find funding for a similar project for Kings kids.

“It was a long-standing dream in Kings County, and really hard to get it going without funding and a dedicated staff.”

KEYS found both: $26,000 in funding through the Kings County Children’s Foundation, and staff in a partnership with Coldbrook-based Valley Child Development, a non-profit support agency for families and children.

Mary Cunningham says five-year-olds routinely are screened before they enter Grade Primary, but that may be later than ideal for a number of reasons.

“KEYS attempts to identify issues that have not been spotted, and then there are two years before school: the earlier a child is identified, the better for everyone - the child, the school and a community,” Cunningham says.

Parents may miss hearing and speech problems, vision issues, behavioral indicators and other concerns - “We really adapt to our child, and a child really doesn’t know any different,” she says.

McGee says it’s also true parents with concerns visiting a family doctor may not get the information they need.

“The doctor may say, ‘Oh, they’ll grow out of it,’ but parents are also not getting information on screening, seatbelts, supports and more.”

Through KEYS’ first screenings, “we were absolutely catching kids,” McGee says. Sixty-five per cent of those seen needed some kind of follow-up for speech, hearing or vision concerns; 24 per cent were given multiple referrals.

“It’s really valuable to do this. For every dollar we spend on preschoolers - support and interventions, we save $7 down the road, and spare a youth an awful lot of agony in their school experience.”

Cunningham says partnerships with Public Health, Nova Scotia Hearing and Speech, family resource centres, the RCMP, the Nova Scotia Community College, mental health workers and others have brought all kinds of supports together for families at a time when they can really be used to catch, and then either correct or plan for, health, behaviour and educational issues down the road.

“We love getting calls from parents, the kids have a great time. Some families have concerns and others don’t, but everyone appreciates the screening and the chance to talk to someone about their child - who wouldn’t?”



Come to school

The Kings Early Years Screening program wants to see as many kids, born between January and December 2005, as possible.

To register for a free screening at a school near you, contact co-ordinator Mary Cunningham, 678-0097.

Dates and locations are as follows:

• Sept. 30 and Oct. 1, Aldershot

• Oct. 7 and Oct. 8, KCA

• Oct. 21 and Oct. 22, Coldbrook

• Oct. 27 and Oct. 28, Port Williams

• Nov. 6, Glooscap

• Nov. 12, Cambridge

• Nov. 19, Kingston

• Nov. 26, Somerset