UBC’s HELP wins distinguished award

The BC Council for Families has awarded the 2015 Carol Matusicky Distinguished Service to Families Award to the Human Early Learning Partnership (HELP). HELP is a collaborative, interdisciplinary research network based at the School of Population and Public Health at the University of British Columbia that brings together many scientific viewpoints to address complex child development issues to help children and families thrive. Using their Early Development Instrument (EDI) questionnaire and their Middle Development Instrument (MDI), HELP has collected information on the state of children’s development in BC’s schools. “The research illustrates how different early environments and experiences contribute to social inequalities in children’s development by school age, and to their life chances,” says Joseph Dunn, Provincial Director of Success By 6 BC, a provincial early years partnership, who nominated HELP. Success By 6 BC is a partnership between United Ways, Credit Unions, and the government of B.C. Joel Kaplan, Executive Director of the BC Council for Families stated that HELP was chosen for their leadership in making child development research accessible and meaningful for planning at the provincial, regional and neighbourhood level. United Way has made good use of HELP’s child development research to understand the needs of vulnerable populations and to plan for the future. HELP will receive a cash award from the BC Council for Families Carol Matusicky Endowment Fund established at the Vancouver Foundation to be directed toward further training or professional development. The award is presented to an organization, collaboration, program or individual family services professional that provides exemplary preventative family life education and support programs in BC. It was established in 1987, and was renamed the Carol Matusicky Distinguished Service to Families Award in 2014 to honour the Council’s late Executive Director. Carol served the agency with distinction for 23 years, from 1984 to 2007 advocating for families and children across the province.