District chosen as pilot project site

Press Release

Rainy River District has been selected by the Ministry of Children and Youth, Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care, and the Ministry of Education as one of the seven demonstration sites in Ontario for integrating speech and language services for young children and students.
Tri-ministry authorities said the local proposal submission showed that its collaborative team can demonstrate improved quality, access, and value for funding integrated speech and language services for children up to Grade 3.
To support the achievement of these outcomes, the district project has been awarded $150,000, which will be used to pilot an innovative and integrative speech language service delivery model for pre-school and school-aged children in the 2011-12 school year.
The rest of the province anxiously will await the intended outcomes of the seven demonstration sites, which also include Niagara, Sudbury, Toronto, Haliburton, Kawartha, Thames Valley, and Kingston, in hopes of setting an example of what works best for children and families, as well as creating easily-accessible and seamless speech language services for our youngest citizens in the province.
Partners in this incredible opportunity are the North Words pre-school speech and language program (Northwestern Health Unit), Northwest Community Care Access Centre School Health Professional Services, Riverside Health Care Facilities, Inc. Pre-school Rehabilitation Services, and the Rainy River District School Board.
The board will take the lead as Ann Anderson, speech language/kindergarten program co-ordinator, will act as the demonstration site manager.
The above team of Rainy River District partners came together with a common goal, which was to put children and families first when it comes to their speech and language needs.
“This is our chance to have a say in the direction of speech language service delivery in the province of Ontario, and that it is crucial the Rainy River District project partners work as a collaborative integrative team because, as Dr. Charles Pascal, the premier’s special advisor on early learning has found out, that is what children and families want,” said Anderson.
“He says that parents should experience the ‘no wrong door’ notion, which means when a family enters a single agency, they enter every agency,” she added.
The local proposed service delivery model embraces this notion of “no wrong door,” and will strive to provide easy and convenient access to services, seamless transitions from pre-school to school, little or no waiting for services, and professionals who are collaborative and communicative so that no child falls through the cracks.