Sherri Husch Foote - Presenter - May 7, 2012

Posted by Murray Crawford

on May 07, 2012

Sherri Husch Foote, the executive director of Midwest Family Connections, was the guest speaker. She talked about a study that shows close to one in three Border City children are struggling with early childhood development.

The study looked at many different angles of childhood development, including empathy, physical health and well-being, social competence, emotional maturity, language and thinking skills and communication skills and general knowledge.

The study also divided the city into three sub-communities. When the sub-communities were studied individually they showed the wealthier of the three had a higher overall rate of successful early development, while the two other sub-communities had lower rates.

Even more concerning in the study was the overall of children in the country and in Alberta. According to the study 25 per cent of Canadian children were not fully developed and lacked certain necessary skills and preliminary numbers showed 26 per cent of Albertans weren’t developed either.

A group called the Lloydminster Early Childhood Development Community Coalition is hosting a community conversation on May 28 at 7 p.m. at the Legacy Centre, as well as a community conference in November.