Community Knowledge Centre - Toronto Community Foundation

About this organization

Mission

CDI’s mission is to promote and support the healthy development of children, and to strengthen the families and communities in which they live.

CDI is one of the leading agencies in Toronto for children’s mental health and healthy child development. We offer a range of services to more than 4,000 children age 0‐16, and their families, every year, in ten locations across the city. We provide programs for early learning, speech and language delays, school problems, behavior issues, serious aggression, criminal behavior, child abuse, family violence, and substance use. Our professional staff members provide individual, group and family counseling, parenting and social skills training, family support and early learning activities.

Our programs are evidence-based. For 25 years, we’ve researched our work in childhood aggression and anti‐social behavior, gender interventions, family violence and child development to better understand, and meet, the needs of children and families. Not only do we make a meaningful difference directly through our own service delivery, we also increase the impact of our work through our partnerships with schools, hospitals, United Way agencies and government.

Child Development Institute has served Toronto children and families for more than 100 years.

History of Organization

At Child Development Institute we are deeply proud of our 100-year history and our historical track record of service to Toronto’s children and families.

In 1909, supports for children and families were scarce for Toronto’s 200,000 city-dwellers. Working-class immigrants were arriving daily, populating “The Ward” at the west end of Toronto, or the developing Earlscourt community area on the city’s northern outskirts along St. Clair Avenue. As the population in the city grew, so did, unfortunately, the number of individuals living in poverty. Many young mothers were forced to work, with no one to care for their children. The needs of those children and families were the impetus for the creation of two organizations that would, almost one hundred years later, join together to become the Child Development Institute: The West End Crèche and the Earlscourt Child and Family Centre. They were pioneers, established in an era when child welfare and early child development were just becoming social concerns worthy of our community’s attention. In 2004, the two became one, merging to build on their combined experience and knowledge to chart a new path in the next century.

Today, Child Development Institute has an annual operating budget of approximately $13 million, with program funding from the Ontario Ministry of Child and Youth Services; revenue from child care fees and subsidies; United Way funding; and approximately $1 million per year in fundraising revenue. We have approximately 200 staff and serve between 4,000 and 5,000 children and their families every year.

Accolades and Accomplishments

“[CDI] helped me find who I truly was.  It was a place to learn and grow and helped build my confidence in school, work – in everything.”

-- Melissa, SNAP^® Girls Connection participant

Our programs are internationally recognized and widely replicated in Canada, the United States, Europe and Australia.  Our research on risk factors, the impact of early intervention, and the impact of family violence on child development is cited in many prestigious peer-reviewed publications.  Our people are invited to give keynote addresses at international conferences of service providers and researchers in child development. 

“The work of the Girls Connection is leading the field. Its in-depth evaluation is informing research on aggressive girls and guiding the development of interventions for girls and their families.”

-- Dr. Debra Pepler, York University

SNAP® (Stop Now and Plan) is perhaps CDI’s best-known achievement.  This behaviour management model is the foundation for many of our programs for children and their families: SNAP® Girls Connection; SNAP® Under 12 Outreach Project for boys; SNAP® for Schools; SNAPP for Parents.  In 2006, SNAP® received the highest possible (Level 1) designation from the White House (Helping America’s Youth Initiative) and the highest rating for evidence-based programs from the U.S. Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.  In 2008, SNAP® was selected by the National Crime Prevention Centre for replication across Canada as part of their national crime prevention strategy, and by the Canadian Safe Schools Network as the school-based model for crime prevention in Ontario elementary schools.

Programs

>SNAP® Girls Connection for girls 6-11

STEPS Volunteer Positions

We are committed to helping children reach their full potential, by supporting and strengthening families.  We provide programs for healthy child development, early learning, early intervention for vulnerable or at-risk children and their families, and family violence services.  

We help children, mostly from ages 0-12, by working with the whole family.  We identify each child and family’s unique strengths, needs and challenges.  Many of our children have emotional or behavioural problems stemming from a variety of sources.  We work with them to uncover their abilities, give them tools to succeed and help them overcome challenges.

We also help children through our research and our scientist-practitioner approach.  Through exploration, innovation, evaluation and knowledge-sharing, we gain a better understanding of what children and families need, and what makes a positive difference in their lives.  We share our research through training, consultation, research and program partnerships – locally, nationally and internationally.

Just a few examples of the many programs we run for children and families are:

• SNAP® (Stop Now and Plan) programs for children under 12 with serious behavioural problems
  • SNAP® Girls Connection for girls 6-11
  • SNAP® Outreach Project for boys 6-11
  • SNAP® school-based programs
  • Summer day camp for children 6-11
• Specialized day treatment classrooms
• Individual, family and group counseling
• Programs for children and mothers who have experienced violence and sexual abuse
• Programs for families who are dealing with substance abuse problems
• Consultation and support for child care centres working with children with special needs
• Early learning (child care) centres in several locations
• An Ontario Early Years Centre (Parkdale-High Park)

SNAP® Girls Connection for girls 6-11

SNAP® Girls Connection serves girls under the age of 12 and their families who live in the City of Toronto.  Our clients are high risk girls with multi-layered challenges who are exhibiting aggressive and/or antisocial behaviours.  We provide individualized treatment plans including three structured core components:  a 12-session group for girls; a concurrent 12-session group for parents; a subsequent 8-session mother-daughter group.  Participants develop SNAP® (Stop Now and Plan) skills through role play and generalization, in a positive and enabling environment.  Additional program modules and follow-up services are available.

Girls focus on self-control, problem-solving and anger management skills which reflect girl-oriented as well as common childhood behavioural problems.  Parents learn effective parenting and anger management skills that address their parenting issues and the needs of their behaviourally challenging daughters.  While, for example, parents may be learning how to address the forms of social aggression displayed or experienced by their daughter (such as social exclusion, or spreading rumours), the girls may be practising the roles of the bully, the victim, and the onlooker.

Funding and Program Partners

The SNAP® Girls Connection program was introduced in 1996 to offer a separate, gender-specific intervention for high-risk young girls and their families.  It has never received government or United Way funding.  CDI is able to offer the program to approximately 90 girls each year with generous financial support from funding partners and CDI donors.  Current or recent leading institutional funding partners include RBC Foundation, Mackenzie Financial Services, St. George’s Golf & Country Club, KPMG, Aastra Telecomm, Environics Communications, Scotiabank, and Wildeboer Dellelce LLP.

Program Impact

The SNAP® Girls Connection clinical research team has conducted a scientific two-year study of program effectiveness.  The results of the most recent investigation are particularly encouraging, with girls in the treatment group improving significantly more than the waitlist group, and maintaining positive changes across time.  In addition, the study revealed positive change in use of effective parenting skills, and positive changes associated with teacher reports.  Girls exhibited less aggressive behaviour, and increased ability to develop and keep positive friendships.  Parents reported feeling more effective with their daughters and less yelling, hitting and scolding.

“Before we started group, we always used to fight all the time.  Now that we came to group, we get along often.”

“I can be with her [my mother] every day.”

-- comments of 2 girls in the program

Toronto's Vital Signs® indicator(s) addressed by Program

“Children in mid-childhood (6-12 years old), who spend time in safe and supervised after-school programming are less likely to experience academic problems, engage in delinquency or be assaulted.” (Toronto’s Vital Signs®, 2009)

Participant Vignette

Valerie’s mother, Lena, isn’t exaggerating when she says that her daughter’s life has been turned around thanks to the SNAP® Girls Connection program at Child Development Institute.

When Valerie was just five months old, she became very sick and developed a fever that lasted for two years. Her family was on a two-year roller coaster ride before she was finally well enough to come home from the hospital, and begin the long process of her physical recovery.

Just when they thought they were out of the woods, Valerie started school. She became uncontrollable. At five years old, she was biting and kicking other kids. She was angry and destructive. Valerie’s teachers didn’t know how to help her. Neighbours complained about her constantly, and friends stopped inviting the family over.

For several years Valerie’s family dealt with her behaviour alone. They called professionals all over the city looking for help, but were repeatedly told there was no help available. They were desperate and almost out of hope.

Finally, when Valerie was nine years old, they found the CDI SNAP® Girls Connection. Valerie learned to work through her feelings – especially her anger. At home, she stopped lying and acting out; at school her behaviour began to improve.

Today, Valerie is a healthy, happy twenty-year-old. She has a great sense of humour and a large circle of friends. She’s looking forward to completing college. Lena became a volunteer at CDI to help other families in similar situations.

1 in 5 children suffers from a mental health problem.

Only 1 in 4 of those children gets the help he or she needs.