On behalf of everyone at HELP, Happy New Year. As usual, HELP faculty and staff are off and running. There will be so much going on at the institute in 2016 I wanted to take this opportunity to share some of the highlights with you.
Internally, HELP is embarking on a strategic planning process. We are in the early stages of this but are already excited about the possibilities as we think critically about who we are and how we want to prioritize our programs, activities and resources.
2016 also marks the final year of Wave 6 EDI collection and so we will be releasing new EDI maps and reports in the fall this year. We are eager to see the trends emerging in Wave 6. We are working on a few new reporting projects so that your data are even more useful to you, including a new EDI report format that includes sub scale and SES information using our new SES Index.
The MDI will be administered in two other Canadian Provinces in the spring in the first phase of the MDI National scale out project. Watch for updates from sites in Ontario, Nova Scotia and the Northwest Territories. We are also supporting researchers to use the MDI in the US, UK, Germany, Australia and Croatia. We are also very excited about starting work on a substantial upgrade of our MDI toolkit that will include lots of new content about using MDI data in schools and communities.
An electronic version of the Childhood Experience Questionnaire (CHeq) will be tested in one school district this fall, led by Dr. Lori Irwin. This gets us one step closer to use of the tool across the province. Led by Dr. Martin Guhn, the Toddler Development Instrument (TDI) focus groups are continuing and also conversations with various agencies and pilot testing this year. Dr. Brenda Poon will be deepening her research on early years networks and evaluation of provincial Early Years Centres. Now that a foundation has been laid we can expect some valuable insights in 2016 that we hope will support community early years professionals and coalitions across the Province.
As always, we will continue to work with communities both in-person and via the web to support learning and the use of data, discuss new initiatives and build solutions at every level. Follow our social media channels for updates on our travels and events. And be in touch with us if it would be useful for us to visit you.
Thank you for your continued support and important contributions to our human development program of research. We look forward to sharing more news about these and other projects throughout the year.
Sincerely,
Pippa Rowcliffe
Deputy Director
