Parenting and Family Literacy Centres
of the Toronto District School Board
Mary Gordon

Introduction

In 1980 the Toronto Board of Education was concerned about low levels of academic performance and the high percentage of school dropouts of its students from inner city schools. Rather than blame the victim, the Board undertook an investigation to discover new ways of working with inner city populations, which might be more inclusive and supportive. Stimulated by a growing body of research which identified parental involvement as key to children's academic success, I wrote a proposal for a parental involvement program involving some pilot sites. The outcome was the birth of Parenting Centres.

Since 1981 our Parenting Centres have sought to improve academic outcomes for inner city children. Parents and caregivers with infants and children up to age four attend the program. Here families receive parenting support and education, access to community resource information, and learn to support their young children's learning. Our family literacy and numeracy programs teach parents and caregivers why and how to read to their young children, in addition to developing a range of strategies which will set their children up for success once they enter kindergarten. More than 7,000 families and 11,000 children register each year in our 34 Parenting and Family Literacy Centres.

Rationale and Values

From the inception of the Centres, it was our belief that the preschool years spent in the home were crucial to the child's development and set the child on a trajectory of success or failure. We saw the parent as the child's first and most influential teacher. Therefore, a critical strategy was to support parents in their role of parenting. The family was always seen as the answer to problems rather than the cause of problems. The overriding value of the Centres was one of respect for all families, who were seen as having significant strengths and the ability to find answers and solutions to their difficulties.

The common denominator of the diverse families who attend the Centres is poverty. Some families who are newcomers to Canada arrive with precious little in terms of worldly goods. Nevertheless, they bring a treasure house of dreams which keep them together, motivated, and optimistic. Not so fortunate are the many hundreds of Canadian families who are in the second or third generation of poverty. Many of these families experience a different type of poverty, one that robs them of hope and initiative. All of these families want the best for their children, but they have different starting points. We decided that, in order to be successful with our educational objectives, we had first to respond to practical issues identified by families.