Chris Colley: 0:12

Excellent. Here we are, people. Another episode of Shift Ed podcast coming to you. Um, it's a cold, bitter, cold day here in uh Montreal. Um, and I was just commiserating with a fellow Montrealer about this uh weather we have, but we're gonna bring some interesting talks, so we'll forget all about the cold. Um, I have Anne Marie Cech, who's coming in from the C HSSN um, which is the community health and social services network uh within um our province here. Um and she does a big focus on early childhood and youth families. Um and I felt it was I met actually, well, I listened to Anne-Marie at the QUESCREN Forum not too long ago, and she um has so many amazing things to say that I was like, I gotta get this on record so that we can have a great conversation about our minority language health services, not only in our youngest learners and our youngest people, but also the broader picture as well. So, Enri, thanks so much for hopping on here and sharing some of your thoughts with us today.

Anne-Marie Cech: 1:22

Thank you so much for having me, Chris. I really looked forward to our conversation.

Chris Colley: 1:27

Likewise, likewise. So, Emory, I guess my first question, it's kind of just to get to know you a little bit and how you got into this position of what were some of the circumstances that brought you into your uh project manager job um with the CHSSN.

Anne-Marie Cech: 1:45

So I have I have a um before I arrived at CHSSN, I worked for an organization called Ash de Gaulle. And they were funded through Avenir d'Enfant and Quebec Enforme. So these are two sort of, I would say, pillar programs that existed in Quebec from about 2009 until about 2020, not quite. And these programs really were there to help communities build partnerships around early childhood and uh and families, especially related to uh healthy lifestyles. So it's been, I've been navigating in the community health components and families and children for um a little more than 15 years now.

Chris Colley: 2:40

Wow, excellent. And where did you find this interest in early childhood? I mean, I'm a huge early childhood advocate. Um I love to do lots of projects and stuff uh with our teachers that teach in preschool and across our day care systems as well. What is it about these young learners that that captures your attention so so readily?

Anne-Marie Cech: 3:05

I think that the data is what prompts me to want to act with this age group because zero to five is really a unique opportunity in the development of the brain that you're not gonna get at any other time. So early intervention is not just a key phrase, it's really scientifically proven that if you intervene with kids at that early age, you're gonna have opportunities for milestones that you won't be able to have at any other time.

Chris Colley: 3:40

Right. It's a very crucial time for any human as they're become growing into a human. I mean, it's crucial those periods. Could you could you push that a bit further? Why is it so important? And and how do we get a good start for our zeros to five?

Anne-Marie Cech: 3:59

So if I had if I had a visual opportunity right now, I could I would be able to show you, or what I would choose to show you is the glowing neurons uh at the time that they're wired, that they're sparking the most. And if you look, if you could imagine just looking at the image of a brain, when you're looking at a child between the ages zero to five, it's lighting up all over the place, like a huge Christmas tree. And after five years of age, slowly you start seeing those lights fading and they fade, they continue to fade as we age. So that's like a visual example of what we can see in terms of potential in our children. And so it that's why, you know, oftentimes people will say, for example, oh, it's so easy to learn languages when you're younger. Well, that's part of it, is the neurons are are really like our brains are like a sponge. And it the brain also remains uh plastic in that the capacity to learn and to integrate new knowledge never goes away. Even until we die, it never goes away. But it's really more adapted for learning in those very early years, and so you want to be able to reach those important developmental life um uh milestones, developmental milestones at the right time, like for language development or emotional cognitive learning, those kinds of things.

Chris Colley: 5:42

Yeah. And every kid is unique um in that their pace of development might vary all over the place. Um is that does that speak true to you?

Anne-Marie Cech: 5:55

Yes, of course. Everybody's unique and all our brains are unique. And I mean, I'm not a neuroscientist, so I I can't speak too much about it, but for sure, I mean, I've seen it with my own kids. I'm the mom of three boys who are all neurodiverse in many ways, and and they have learned and they continue to learn differently, right? They're they're early adult, they're young adults now, but um I I see it still now that you know there's some kids that it takes them longer to learn certain things, and that's okay, but we have to be there to support in those unique ways because not everybody learns the same way.

Chris Colley: 6:36

Absolutely, absolutely. In our preschool program here in Quebec, too, we we look at the five developmental phases and um to how to observe all those as kids progress through their lives. Um, it's really quite fascinating. And what does does the C uh C SSN how does it create those connections between school, kids growing up, learning, and their family and community? Like what are some of the threads that you guys attach to those those communities?

Anne-Marie Cech: 7:11

That's a great question, Chris. And before I jump into that actual question, I'd like to create a little bit of a context of why CHSSN has decided to take part in in addressing the needs of uh English younger and school-aged English-speaking children and their families, because this is a uh CHSSN has existed for 25 years, but the early childhood dossier here has really taken on uh more importance it's for six years now since uh my arrival at CHSSN. I didn't put it on the table. It was on the table when I arrived, ready for me to pick up. But the the reason why CHSSN took an interest in early childhood and families is because there was a study that was done uh in the Guest Fisher Les Îles La Madeleine, which demonstrated that there were really much fewer available activities, uh, so develop activities for child development in those regions compared to uh in English, compared to Francophone activities. And there was also some important data telling us that English-speaking kids were lagging behind compared to French-speaking children. And so we felt, or the CHSSN felt that it would be important to address those needs. And now, how does CHSSN help connect community organizations with schools and whatnot? And why is that important to us? Is because we know that if families are not accessing services or are struggling in the access of service, this will affect their well-being and this will have an impact on child development. So right now, we don't have any studies that tell us directly that access to services has an impact on the development of children. But we know in 2025, or rather, the last big study that was done on child development, which is the Enquête Québécoise sur le développement des enfants à la maternelle, uh, told us that children, um, English-speaking children, uh, you know, when they're in kindergarten, are still faring worse off than French-speaking children. And we believe if those children have and their families have better access to services, those kids will be better off.

Chris Colley: 9:45

And when you say services, Henry, what could you elaborate on that a bit? Like what what aspects or what services would would support them in this developmental time of their lives?

Anne-Marie Cech: 9:58

So I'm thinking of I'd say two main uh services. So one of course is the health service. So anything that has to do with specialized services such as physiotherapy, speech language pathology, um, psychoeducators, that kind of a thing, and everything related to physical health as well. But there's a lot that can be done in prevention and promotion. And I think that's where schools and communities can really work together at addressing this gap in services. And so anything that's uh literacy activities that could be made available to families and children, uh, those are super, super important. There is such a big difference in terms of the number of words that a child is exposed to. And if if you read to them once a day compared to children who are not read to once a day. And if you if there's one thing that parents can do to help their kids prepare for school is reading books with them. That is the number one thing that they can do that will have an impact on their educational success, is reading a book every day. It doesn't have, you don't have to buy anything special. You don't have to be on any devices, just books. So that so anything that helps kids access books and helps support parents in how to interact with their child with a book. Um, there's a lot of initiatives out there related to uh songs, rhymes, uh play activities, free play activities where kids can can have space to move. And I'm thinking about schools who have these great gyms that aren't being used or could be better used on weekends and in evenings, where families can just go and play freely. So kids don't need complex um learning environments, they actually need very simple learning environments where they can interact with that environment. So a ball in a gym where you can run. I mean, put a bunch of kids in a gym, they'll find something to do and they'll find something to play with in there. Even if it's even if it's a Kleenex, they'll start throwing that thing around.

Chris Colley: 12:24

I love that. I mean, it's not complicated, I guess, is what you're saying, but it's making it a routine, making it something that there's a habit that forms where you're reading every day, you're seeking out areas where kids can go and play freely, outdoor spaces, indoor spaces, and connecting those. Because I it rings true a lot with my educational background of that kind of like trying to make it harder than it needs to be, that kids, as they're growing up, need to feel attached to someone and then they need to play. Um, and if we kept it at that basics instead of preparing them for grade one or grade two or preparing them for the unknown or the modern technology of the world, like if we bring it back down to the essence of of life, do you think that that would have a better effect on our kids than how it's going right now, according to the data and the information that you have at your fingertips?

Anne-Marie Cech: 13:28

There's parts of that that I can respond to and parts that I can't. But one thing that I can say is that children, like you said, they basically they need a safe space to develop in and to explore. Essentially, a kid's job is to explore the world. And that that's what learning is. And so having areas where that is made possible to them and taking a little bit of risks, you know, because that's when you learn what your own limits are. And if you run too fast or you don't have the right pair of shoes to run in, I'm thinking about my son who a few years ago we were on a trip and he was in a hotel. He's 15-year-old, he should know this, but I guess I guess this party never learned. He was running on a on a treadmill in his croc shoes, and he he fell on the treadmill. And so, but these these are learning experiences. And yeah, and uh, and he, I mean, he remembers it, of course. And I I don't, you know, I don't think he's gonna do that again. But but the point is that taking risks for children in in free spaces is a really great opportunity for them to learn to, you know, with when other kids are there, they're learning social skills. Um and and the other thing I I have to delve a little bit, I'm gonna allow myself to delve a little bit into free play because I'm very passionate about it. And I think that there, there when you bring a group of kids together, what's been observed is if there are different levels of skills, kids will naturally adapt the rules in a context of a game to facilitate the flow of the game. So if you have older kids and they're playing, say, kickball, which is similar to baseball, but you're kicking a ball, they might make the rules a little bit different for the younger ones, because if they have to wait for the kid to actually be able to kick the ball far enough to make a point, then it complexifies the game. So they tend kids tend to self-organize. They they they have the abilities to do it, they have the abilities to find solutions together. And so I think we have a lot to gain. They have a lot, we have a lot to gain by by giving kids a little bit more space, but being there to support them through it. And I and the reason why I'm talking about this also is because in especially with Christmas coming around, you know, we often feel pressure as parents to have the right games and and to register them to the right activities so that to f benefit their development as much as possible. But in reality, they don't need anything that's high-tech, definitely not. I think we all know that screens actually can have a negative, you know, there are a lot of negative impacts related to screens, but um things like playing outside in snow and building a snow castle or you know, going sledding. There is there are a lot of skills that children and parents can build together, you know, everything from making the plan to build the snow castle, figuring out with the different types of snow. There's harder snow, there's softer snow, there's you can decorate it. And what I love, and I feel like I'm going all over the place, but but what I especially love about snow castles is they become a hangout for the rest of the winter where families can go back to and keep building on it and and uh maintain it. And I know that I've had a lot of fun with my kids doing that. It gives them like a sort of a purpose or a goal. And then if there are other kids involved, well, then they have to learn to negotiate on you know other elements of the snow castle that they want to do anyway.

Chris Colley: 17:45

I love your ideas too. And I've been starting to think about that too, because Christmas is around the corner of things or experiences, you know, like should I just buy more things, you know, that they probably don't really need or care about after Christmas is gone, or an experience that will stick with them. Um, you know, going to a hockey game, going out and sliding, going skating, you know, pick up hot, whatever it might be, that I think that those kinds of experiences will stick much more than oh, I got this new brush, you know, like so. I love what you're saying, and I'm a huge free play advocate as well. I just I think that it's the heart of and and oftentimes free play is kind of misunderstood um in what it is, what does that mean? Um, and I always tell teachers that the kid decides who to play with, how to play, where to play. I mean, obviously we need to make sure they're safe and everything, but it's driven by the kid. Um and it perplexes some. And I say, well, be playful, just let them be playful, you know, like all other animals out there, like when cats are being playful or dogs are being playful, there's some risk, sure, but at the same time, they're learning regulation, right? Like like you mentioned, that these are important steps that they need to go through. Um and Emory, kind of like with this kind of whole school and community in our minds, what are some of the links that that that you guys give as support to those schools and the families that that maybe most of our population might even not know about?

Anne-Marie Cech: 19:24

So um within one of our early childhood programs at CHSSN, which is called Bright Beginnings, there are two coordinators in each of the regions of Quebec um that are within these 23 English speaking network organizations. So um what the organizations we like to call them network partnership initiatives. So in our lingo, they're NPIs, and each of these NPIs, as I was saying, has A coordinator within those or within their establishment. And the role of the coordinator is to build partnerships with existing organizations that offer services. So they will collaborate with their English speaking schools. They will collaborate with the CL, the CLSCs within your network, Chris. They will collaborate with the community learning centers. They will also collaborate with libraries and other municipal programs. Just to give you an idea. So also les maisons de la famille and what these coordinators do is they help facilitate access to existing services. So for example, if a maison de la famille is offering a parent-child program where they're cooking or they're reading together, well, and but the maison de famille doesn't have an English English speaking staff, then uh one of our coordinators can go help offer that activity bilingually, or they can help translate parts of the materials that parents would need. So within the schools, our um organizations, our coordinators in our NPI organizations can also help facilitate access to professionals who could come give workshops within the schools. So for example, if uh I I know that like what I've heard is is there, especially in the high schools, this is a little outside of uh younger kids, but there are a lot of needs for support in mental health. And a lot of our organizations work with schools to be able to offer workshops for the for the students. They can also bring in um specialists to give workshops to parents or to give workshops to teachers. There are lots of materials that exist that teachers might not be uh aware of that they can integrate into their curriculum. Um so our organizations are aware of these tools that exist and they they can also help facilitate for schools to become hubs of re available resources in mental health, for example. Or, you know, I'm also thinking about um a project that we had around autism, where our organizations connected with existing autistism services in their community. So they these organizations or our organizations could help create a link between the school and other existing services, or at least making the information available to the schools so that they can communicate it to their students or parents.

Chris Colley: 23:16

I love that. I love that. So there is support out there. Um, it's just finding it, which thank goodness we're having this podcast because I'll connect all the resources that Amory's talking about in this podcast so that you can have that available to you, listener. Um it's so fascinating. I mean, our time is running to a close here, Emory, and I I I just have so many other things. So we definitely need to do a part two of this because there's so much about belonging and well-being. And I mean, like I said before we hopped on here, we could probably talk for hours on on these subjects. But I guess to wrap things up, Emery, I have one other question, and I'll try to make it not so big. But as we kind of navigate through, you know, Quebec as a community, uh, both you know, francophone communities, anglophone communities, are there happy stories out there where communities come together to support common causes around, you know, our children, our education, our um community services? Um I'm thinking of of the holiday season, and I'm maybe we can leave on a joyful note of an example that you know of, and I'm no, I'm sure you know a million, but have really done a good job where communities come together to support one another.

Anne-Marie Cech: 24:42

Yeah. Um, I love that you that you're bringing the conversation in this direction, and it it leads me to talk to you about an initiative that happened between um a maison de famille. So this isn't one involving a school, but it it involves a maison de famille and one of our organizations called Eco02, who's in the Sadnay-Lac Saint-Jean, and the Maison de Famille is la Maison de la Famille de Chicoutzimi. And they have come together with other partners. It's a region where the partners are really work very closely in collaboration to with one another. And they the maison de famille was seeing some example, some immigrant families coming in that felt more comfortable speaking English, or there were newcomers from elsewhere in Canada that were coming to their region, a lot of military families, for example, and they decided to come together to be able to offer uh programs in English or bilingual, where they even have parent support groups, where there are francophone and anglophone parents coming together. And more and more, what we're seeing is there are a lot of benefits to bringing Francophone and Anglophone families because it expands the networks of those new families coming in that might not have French as a first language. And so they can make friends outside of the English-speaking community. And at the same time, it helps Francophone families see the realities of the Anglophone families and recognize that the challenges that they face in learning French are really don't come from not wanting to learn. They actually really do want to learn, but that it takes time and it's complex and they have other priorities when they're when they're first getting settled into a new region. But feeling feel yeah, so I'm feeling a sense of belonging from the French community as they come into Quebec.

Chris Colley: 26:56

Absolutely.

Anne-Marie Cech: 26:57

Absolutely.

Chris Colley: 26:58

Yeah.

Anne-Marie Cech: 26:59

So I'll send you a link. I'll send you a link to that video. We we had a little video made on this initially.

Chris Colley: 27:05

Oh, cool, cool. I'll definitely post that for sure. And it kind of brings us back to language learning. It takes time when you get older, right? I mean, I think it's 12 pre-puberty is your best time to learn a language, and then it gets harder and harder as it goes on. So we do have to understand that they are trying. There's always an effort there. I whatever I've seen across this beautiful province of ours is that the effort is always there and the respect is always there. Um, what a great story to end on, Emery. I I really appreciate that one. That's a good one. And um, I definitely would love to continue this conversation with you down the road. Um, I feel there's a lot more that we could, I know there's a lot more we can talk about, but I thank you for your time today. Um and I wish you a great holiday season two with your family and um enjoy this chilly air. Uh hopefully it will depart uh in the spring and we will forget all about it. Um, but thank you so much for your time today, Emery. It was really great talking about you.

Anne-Marie Cech: 28:07

Thank you, and a wonderful holiday season to you and your family as well. And you know, the cold is good, the the the snow is good. Remember, snow castles.

Chris Colley: 28:20

Yes. I'm gonna build one with my kids this this holiday season. So thanks for inspiring uh project.

Anne-Marie Cech: 28:27

Wonderful.

Chris Colley: 28:28

Thank you.