The Healthy Children Program was created under the CAPC umbrella in response to concerns about nutrition and food security. It included several innovative activities: a Chef of the Month Challenge (where chefs tried to cook for a family of four for a day on $6.99 – the amount that many CAPC families had to live on); and a highly successful Community Kitchen where volunteers made nutritious meals that were given out free.
Hundreds of people from every province and territory had been trained as School’s Cool Instructors! The training had always needed to be done on-site, which meant considerable time and travel. For the first time, SIRCH developed and piloted an online training program. Research, done by Dr. Susan Chuang of Guelph University, based on over 3,000 children who had taken the School’s Cool program (from various provinces), validated results which showed the program increased children’s development in math, language, self-help, social and psychological skills by an average of 50 weeks.
SIRCH co-sponsored a two day conference in Peterborough on Aboriginal issues with Nimlewaquom Learning Centre.