Paul Kershaw, on behalf of the Human Early Learning Partnership, was pleased to accept the first Carol Matusicky Distinguished Service to Families Award.
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.
“HELP’s collaborative, interdisciplinary research helps to illustrate 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 of Success By 6 BC, a provincial early years partnership, who nominated HELP.
Cathy Matusicky, Carol’s daughter, presented the award at the BC Council for Families Annual General Meeting, which took place on July 10th. In addition, 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.