Results at a Glance: Evaluation of the Aboriginal Head Start in Urban and Northern Communities Program

Office of Audit and Evaluation
November 2022

Program context

The Aboriginal Head Start in Urban and Northern Communities (AHSUNC) Program, created in 1995, supports the spiritual, emotional, mental, physical and social well-being of First Nations, Métis and Inuit children and families living in off-reserve/off-territory and northern communities across Canada. The program does this in a holistic way through six core components: Culture and Language, Education, Health Promotion, Nutrition, Social Support, and Parental and Family Involvement.

Annually, AHSUNC serves around 4,200 to 4,300 young Indigenous children and their families via 133 sites managed by local Indigenous organizations. Each site adapts their programming, guided by the six components, to local social and cultural contexts, needs, and capacity. PHAC provided contribution funding of approximately $33M per year between 2016-17 and 2020-21.

Evaluation approach

An Evaluation Working Group of community and PHAC representatives collaborated on the evaluation design, conduct and review. The evaluation was done to support community and PHAC decision making and to meet federal reporting requirements for grants and contributions programs. In line with the principles of Reconciliation, the evaluation was designed to be community-led, inclusive, and action oriented.

What the evaluation found

There is ongoing and increasing need for early childhood development programming for Indigenous children and their families living in off-reserve/off-territory and northern communities that is holistic, culturally focused and accessible. AHSUNC has been described as "Reconciliation in action". The program supports the development and well-being of participating Indigenous children and families by addressing education and health inequities in the communities where they live through a cultural lens, and by promoting the central role of the family. AHSUNC site staff have created a sense of safety and belonging, delivering programming and facilitating access to additional health and social services to meet essential needs. This community-focused nature and networking proved to be an important source of resilience during the COVID-19 pandemic. Relationships between AHSUNC site staff and PHAC have been evolving in a way that increasingly supports community self-determination and principles of Truth and Reconciliation. This includes recent developments to promote the National Aboriginal Head Start Council (NAHSC) as the lead for strategic decision making for program priorities.

The level of PHAC core funding for AHSUNC has been static since 2002. Inflation and rising operational costs have reduced the capacity of sites to recruit and retain qualified staff. This has posed challenges, in the context of a growing Indigenous population, to expanding site enrolment, offering more support for children with special needs and creating new sites in communities that need them. Lastly, many AHSUNC sites face barriers in navigating the complex funding agreements from PHAC despite efforts to introduce flexibilities.

The evaluation identified two key priorities that are already being addressed by the Program together with the NAHSC in the context of new Indigenous Early Learning and Child Care Initiative funding: i) Create opportunities to reach more Indigenous children and their families in under-served and unserved urban and northern communities; and ii) Address critical and long-standing staffing issues at AHSUNC sites.

Recommendations

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