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Understanding how housing insecurity affects families participating

in Saskatchewan’s KidsFirst early childhood intervention program


What is KidsFirst?

KidsFirst is a federally-funded, provincially-run intervention As part of a three-year evaluation of KidsFirst, interviews and
program launched in 2002 that provides support and services focus groups were conducted with 242 people (84 interviews
to vulnerable families with young children (aged 0-5) in with program managers, home visiting supervisors, and
Saskatchewan. It is offered in nine areas of the province home visitors, parents in the program, and an Aboriginal
that were identified as having high levels of need when the elder, and 27 focus groups with management committee
program was established. There are KidsFirst programs in members, supporting agency representatives, and KidsFirst
Meadow Lake, Moose Jaw, Nipawin, Northern Saskatchewan, staff. Information in this fact sheet is based on the report
North Battleford, Yorkton and selected neighbourhoods in from this qualitative study; the full report is available at:
Prince Albert, Regina and Saskatoon. www.kidskan.ca/node/279).

KidsFirst uses intensive home visiting to support children


living in very vulnerable circumstances so that they can be Working with families in crisis
nurtured and supported by healthy, well-functioning families.
Home visitors work to build capacity in families, promote Something that became clear through the interviews and
healthy child development and facilitate goal achievement focus groups was that while the program was able to help
for parents (such as returning to school or finding a job). many families with parenting skills, parent-child interaction
and other aspects of early childhood development, the
Home visitors focus on the positive, building on each family’s program had difficulty reaching and keeping some families,
strengths to build parents’ self-esteem and confidence. and others were showing little improvement. Those families
They are considered the link between KidsFirst parents and most in need of services were the very ones most likely to slip
community services whose mandate is to support children through the cracks.
and families. KidsFirst is a paraprofessional home visiting
program, where lay home visitors receive support from Some families are classified as complex-needs families by
professionals. the program. These families face multiple challenges, such

Saskatchewan KidsFirst Program Evaluation (2007-10): Complex-Needs Families and Housing www.kidSKAN.ca/KidsFirst 1
as developmental challenges, chronic physical conditions, writing. Her current boyfriend Dave is occasionally abusive. She
domestic violence, maternal depression, mental illness, has a history of drug addiction. Social Services has apprehended
substance abuse, social isolation and extreme parenting her children once before. She is usually short of money mid-
stress, which puts themselves and their children at higher risk month and relies on food banks.
for negative outcomes.
KidsFirst staff have reported that it is difficult for them to
What would a complex-needs family look like? To understand achieve positive developmental outcomes with or teach the
this better, we developed a composite profile of a complex- program curriculum to complex-needs families like Sarah’s.
needs family: Sarah is an unemployed mother of two. She has These families are consistently burdened by and preoccupied
FASD (Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder), and her kids have FASD with pressing issues, and therefore have difficulty focusing
and developmental disorders. She has trouble with reading and on the curriculum, learning parenting skills and receiving and
incorporating information they receive from the program into
This fact sheet is part of a series describing our three year their lives.
evaluation of KidsFirst, funded by the Canadian Population
Health Initiative, and the Government of Saskatchewan, with As one home visitor said, “With families that have addictions
some additional support from MITACS, and the College of or are in abusive situations, when you walk into a home
Medicine at the University of Saskatchewan. The evaluation they’re not thinking about ‘Oh, let’s talk about, you know,
was led by Nazeem Muhajarine, lead of the Healthy Children how great it is to have your child learn to walk without shoes
Research Team at the Saskatchewan Population Health and on, because it’s better for the muscles in their feet,’ you know?
Evaluation Research Unit, in partnership with staff from the They don’t want to hear that when they just got beat up the
Early Childhood Development Unit in the Saskatchewan night before.”
Ministry of Education, and KidsFirst program staff. A full list of
team members is found in the reports. While the focus of KidsFirst home visitors is to work with
families to improve their children’s lives, it is common
The following reports were produced as part of this evaluation: for them to take on a different role when working with
• Evaluation Framework complex-needs families; instead focusing on education, they
• Community Profiles provide support, emergency counseling and help with crisis
• Focused Literature Review management.
• Using Theory to Plan and Evaluate KidsFirst
• Report of the Qualitative Study Further, what “success” looks like for a complex-needs family
• Report of the Quantitative Study might depend on the family’s current circumstances. KidsFirst
• Summary of Findings and Recommendations. staff explained that for some complex-needs families, success
might simply be preventing a child’s home environment from
Reports and fact sheets can all be read online or downloaded declining further.
from www.kidSKAN.ca, the Saskatchewan Knowledge to
Action Network for Early Childhood Development. Go to www. Interview and focus group participants noted, however, that
kidSKAN.ca/KidsFirst, or click on “KidsFirst” under the Projects providing families with support and helping them through
menu on the front page. For more information, contact Fleur a crisis may eventually set the conditions necessary for
Macqueen Smith, fleur.macqueensmith@usask.ca, 306-966- families to focus on their children’s development. By reducing
2957, Knowledge Transfer Manager of the Healthy Children the frequency and severity of the crises, KidsFirst staff attempt
Research Team in SPHERU. to create safer, more supportive and stable environments for
children.

“Some of the families in the KidsFirst program are so high risk, or may have mental
health and addictions issues, that maybe instead of them progressing, maybe they’re
not sliding. And those things are very, very hard to measure. Maybe they don’t become
a Child Protection family. But I don’t know how you would measure that. Many of these
families have very complex, complex needs.” — home visitor

2 Saskatchewan KidsFirst Program Evaluation (2007-10): Complex-Needs Families and Housing www.kidSKAN.ca/KidsFirst
Home visits need a home

While KidsFirst clients, especially complex-needs families, “The housing outlook for lots of our
have many challenges, one of the biggest they face is finding
safe and affordable housing. The lack of stable housing leads families is often very problematic and
to a high degree of transience among these families, and it
undermines fundamentally the effectiveness of the KidsFirst
I think it can contribute to some of the
program. challenges in parenting and even in
In our research it was clear that many KidsFirst families lack relationships and the way we problem
adequate housing. There were reports about clients living
in run-down houses, houses infested with rodents, lice, bed solve. It is amazing what having one
bugs or cockroachs, having to deal with poor security and location that you call home and a fridge
indifferent landlords. Home visitors found other problems
such as mould, which could lead to asthma and other that you call yours can do to your security.”
respiratory problems for children. In one KidsFirst community,
there were several families who would have qualified for —KidsFirst staff member
rental supplements, except that their homes did not meet
the safety requirements needed to receive supplements.
Housing insecurity goes beyond the problems with the
Due to housing shortages and rising rental costs, actual structures. In other words, the issue affects more than
overcrowding is another common problem for families. the roof over a family’s head. Security surrounding other
Home visitors described visiting homes with up to 22 people necessities such as food or personal safety becomes harder to
living in them. Although in some communities, living with obtain if people are not living in stable
multiple generations under one roof is home environments:
considered part of a cultural tradition of
communal living, financial constraints, “When families are in good housing
limited space and resources have they do better; when they are in
made some of these living situations substandard housing, overcrowded
very challenging. Overcrowding housing there is always more
has contributed to poor sanitation problems. Hardly ever do families
conditions in the homes, reduced the do well when the housing is
amount of attention given to children really substandard so housing
and has resulted in intergenerational would be one important area for
conflict in child rearing practices. improvement.
—KidsFirst staff member
In urban sites, precarious living
arrangements among KidsFirst families have been heightened While housing presents an obstacle to the success of KidsFirst
by increased rental prices, low vacancy rates and a lack of rent at helping complex-needs families, the program itself has
controls. Home visitors reported incidents of KidsFirst women built-in hurdles surrounding where clients can live. Because
working in the sex trade in order to keep up with the rising of the “targeted area” approach to KidsFirst, by geography,
cost of living.

Even with all the success we have and all the things we’ve done in KidsFirst, when you
look at all the crises around housing in this last year; it didn’t matter what was going on,
if this family doesn’t have a place to sleep in a few nights, then anything else doesn’t
matter; whatever we do, you know —KidsFirst staff member

Saskatchewan KidsFirst Program Evaluation (2007-10): Complex-Needs Families and Housing www.kidSKAN.ca/KidsFirst 3
families that move outside the nine sites in Saskatchewan For example, KidsFirst staff and management committees
where the program operates may no longer be able to conducted a housing study at one site that identified poor
receive services. housing, which ultimately led to the community enacting
bylaws on municipal housing standards.
“We had a home visitor working with a family to apply for safe
and secure housing. They applied to the housing authority, were KidsFirst staff, who are well aware of families’ needs and
successful, got a unit but it happened to be [outside the target challenges, should continue to advocate for changes in
area]… their home visitor [was forced to ask]: “Do you want safe, housing policy and for additional housing support for families
affordable housing for you and your family, or do you want to (rent controls, increases in social assistance, safe and secure
continue with KidsFirst?” social housing). The intersectoral structure
—home visitor supervisor and flexibility of the KidsFirst program can
facilitate these efforts.
Advocating for change
Addressing the housing crisis is a necessary
Given that many of the province’s most first step to increasing the reach of
vulnerable families are homeless or the KidsFirst program to include and
highly transient due to insecure housing, retain complex-needs families. More
it becomes very difficult to offer them importantly, it would improve the living
support in the form of home visitation environment and health of families with
without first helping them secure a stable young children, and reduce disparities
residence. When families experience in maternal and child health, which in and of itself
housing shortages, sudden and steep increases in may reduce the need for early childhood development
rental fees, poverty and other factors, these conditions often interventions like KidsFirst.
lead to instability and in turn cause families to leave the
program prematurely. The evaluation team made a number of recommendations for
program improvements, which can be seen in the Summary
Many KidsFirst sites have, in spite of all the challenges, tried to of Findings and Recommendations, available at:
tackle the problem of housing in a number of ways by: www.kidskan.ca/node/281. The recommendations include
one to better serve complex-needs families, and two on
• helping families apply for better housing through their housing issues:
local government; - families with complex needs should be offered a modified
• informing clients of their rights as tenants; (specialized) program involving specialized home visitors
• working with them to understand housing regulations; - working with appropriate agencies, increased effort should
• acting as references in cases where families face evictions be made to help families find suitable, affordable and safe
by landlords; housing
• helping them complete housing application forms; and - targeted area restrictions should be reviewed and updated
• advocating for better housing standards, such as lobbying or eliminated.
for bylaws to regulate local housing standards. Printed on the iGen3 Digital Press at
Printing Services Document Solutions & Distribution
University of Saskatchewan • 966-6639

4 Saskatchewan KidsFirst Program Evaluation (2007-10): Complex-Needs Families and Housing www.kidSKAN.ca/KidsFirst

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