What is Best Start?

The Ministry of Children and Youth Services (MCYS) has designed the following goals to develop and maintain a sustainable holistic child care system that will ensure children in Ontario will be ready and eager to achieve success in school by the time they start Grade 1.

The bullets below outline what the District of Parry Sound is currently doing to meet these goals.

1. Build on existing children’s services planning groups to establish Best Start networks responsible for planning and implementing Best Start in their communities;
   • In the District of Parry Sound, the planning group is the Best Start Network. This Network is comprised of members from the Early Years Team, and community stake holders and parents.
2. Create neighbourhood early learning hubs that provide integrated services and supports for families with young children;
   • Building on some of the existing models of Integrated Service Delivery, we will be surveying families to determine what supports are required in the different neighbourhoods within the District of Parry Sound.
3. Support flexible implementation strategies that make sense for communities (e.g., urban, rural, northern, francophone, aboriginal, cultural communities);
   • The Best Start Network will work with all members of our community to determine gaps and requirements to support an inclusive system for families, children and youth.
4. Give communities tools to support the planning process;
   • The District of Parry Sound already has determined previous demographic information by utilizing multiple sources, including the Early Development Instrument (EDI). Research to support planning is ongoing.
5. Best Start funding has created 249 new spaces in the district.
6. Enhance key early identification and intervention programs.
   • Work with all current community partners to expand our early identification & intervention services such as the Preschool Speech and Language Program, Infant Development, Integration Support Services and Healthy Babies Healthy Children program.
7. Develop and support universal screening of all children at 18 months
   • The Ministry of Children & Youth Services has established an Expert Panel on the 18-month Well Baby Visit to identify strategies to promote consistent use of a common developmental record such as the Nipissing Screen. Communication and collaboration between parents, the medical profession and early years service providers to discuss children’s development will establish a consistent strategy.