Children and Parents Together
Pilot Report

Pilot Program Report

The Parent-Child Mother Goose Program was piloted by Kingston Literacy in partnership with Better Beginnings for Kingston Children, a program serving high needs and low-income families. Kingston Literacy is a community-based literacy organization that provides adult upgrading services in both one-to-one and small group environments. They began developing family literacy programs in 1989 to support the development of early literacy skills in children from homes where parents have low literacy skills. Better Beginnings for Kingston Children runs several programs including pre-natal classes, in-home parent support, and play groups.

Pilot Information

Sixteen parents along with fifteen children between two and five years old participated in the program; five siblings attended a child care group during the sessions. Eight adults were Better Beginnings clients; three were clients of the Child Care Resource Centre; the balance of participants were referred by local service agencies. Four families spoke English as a second language.

Program Practices

The program was held once a week for ten weeks from the beginning of October until mid-December. The two co-facilitators arrived an hour before the program started to clear the room so that participants could sit on the floor. They also prepared the art activity and snack. The program started at 12:30 p.m. with a light lunch and informal discussion. At 12:45 p.m., parents and children gathered in a music circle to sing favourite songs. A program assistant was present to supervise any children that wandered away from the circle. This allowed the parents to remain engaged with the group. At one o’clock, the adults and children separated. The children went to the childcare room for art activities and stories while the parents worked on oral storytelling and learning a new rhyme or song with the Mother Goose facilitator. At 1:30 p.m., the children re-joined their parents and together they participated in dancing songs. A fifteen-minute informal discussion concluded each session. The co-facilitators remained for an hour to review the session and plan for the following week.

Evaluation Component of Program Model

The parent evaluation form provided by the Mother Goose program was used. Two additional questions were added. These related to the specific goals of the pilot about whether parents were using more songs and stories at home with their children. This feedback was not elicited on the standard form.

Program Goals

Program model goals:

Program site goal:

Outreach

Flyers were posted at a public school, a grocery store, and the Native Friendship Centre. Previous clients of the centre were contacted by telephone. In addition, an outreach worker visited the following:

Program Model Resources

All of the program resources were used including the Parent-Child Mother Goose video, the Parent-Child Mother Goose Program training manual, and the apprenticeship training manual. The apprenticeship training manual was clear and extremely helpful. They also used many of the songs and some stories provided during the training workshop.

Beginning and Middle of Pilot

Challenges

The program model assumes that each parent participates with only one child. However, many of the parents interested in the program had more than one pre-school child. Therefore, the pilot program offered simultaneous “sibling child care” so that these mothers could attend. The total cost of the program increased because of the increased expense associated with providing childcare for siblings.

The program model suggests that ideally the facility should have two separate rooms so that the parents and children can be separated for thirty minutes. This gives the adults a quiet time to focus on telling a story and learning a song. During early sessions, the children were separated from the parents with a divider during storytelling. This proved distracting and noisy for the adult participants. In subsequent sessions, the children joined their siblings in the childcare room. However, with full attendance, the number of children in the childcare room violated fire code regulations, as well as the centre’s child/staff ratios. This problem was resolved by letting two or three of the children join their parents in the adult room.

The facilitators needed to emphasize that they wanted the parents and not just the children to participate fully in the song. By the midpoint of the program, all the parents except one were participating fully. They also needed to reiterate that they wanted the parents to remain in the circle even if their child left. There was a natural tendency to follow the child and supervise, even with a qualified staff person there to do it.

Highlights

The facilitators commented that it was a joy to watch the children; they loved the music time. They thought it would be difficult to get the children to re-join their parents for dancing after spending time in the childcare room with all of its toys, but this did not present a problem. They found it remarkable to see children learning the songs after only one session and to receive feedback that they are requesting specific songs at home. They were impressed by how quickly the parents “loosened up” and began to participate fully.

Participant and Facilitator Feedback

The feedback was extremely positive. The parents were amazed at how quickly the children learned the songs. The enjoyment of both parents and children was evident. Many parents asked for the words to the songs in order to practice, but according to the program model, handouts with the words to songs and rhymes are given out only at the end of the ten-week session. Parents enjoyed the separate adult time. It was relaxing and they could practice the new song without interruptions. According to the facilitators, many mothers seemed uncomfortable with the storytelling component. When asked to tell a few sentences of the story, most passed.

Completion of Pilot

Challenges

After consultation with the trainer from Ottawa midway through the program, the facilitators felt more confident. With only the workshop training received in Toronto, the program would not have been as successful.

Some children had trouble separating from their parents during storytelling time. The program works much better with the parents and children separated for teaching times. Two mothers remained uncomfortable telling part of a story in a group although they both said at the end of the program that they intended to tell stories at home with their children.

Highlights

At the end of the program, a booklet of songs was given to all the parents. Producing this booklet was very time-consuming as it was inputted into the computer and pictures were downloaded to illustrate many of the songs. The booklet included all the words to the parents’ and children’s favourite songs, not just the new songs they had learned. The parents loved it and informed the facilitators that it is used frequently at home.

Participant Feedback

Everyone reported using the songs at home. Of the eight families that completed the program, six reported that they intended to practice oral storytelling at home. Several mothers reported using songs as tools during diaper time, bedtime, and while waiting for the bus. Several parents reported that their children were teaching the songs to their fathers and siblings.

Outcomes

Eight families (fifty percent) dropped out. Six of these (seventy-five percent) attended only once or never and most of these had been referred by other agencies. Two families attended approximately four sessions before dropping out because of illness. Severe winter weather dramatically affected attendance on two occasions.

Facilitator’s Reflections and Evaluation

The facilitators were very positive about the program. They had observed that although the parents regularly attend children’s programs which have music circles, most parents had not thought about using the songs or stories at home. The facilitators felt that both the encouragement and teaching time that the parents received in the Mother Goose program helped the parents to feel confident about using the songs at home. They felt that they met their primary goal of teaching parents new songs as well as a secondary goal of enhancing the bonding between parents and children.