STARSS stories from the Prairie Sky

Portage Aboriginal Head Start & The Door Community Connecting Place We held 2 information afternoons with  Free hot dogs  Beverages  Star Cookies & Ice cream  Door prizes  Handouts

 What works  Effects of Secondhand Smoke on Children  I’m a Star Mom newsletter  Welcome bags – magnet, window cling, stir sticks, mints, liquorice, gum, nail polish, and stars stickers.

PAHS – 18 adults and 38 children attended - 8 women signed to attend a Starss Workshop The Door – 10 adults and 32 children attended - 6 women signed up to attend Starss Workshop Our local paper ran an article with pictures of the days events.

Another tool to keep moms hands busy. Some of my Moms tell me they found it hard. My reply was you bet it is, if it was to easy you would have been done in 2 minutes and gone for a smoke. They agreed and said they were determined to finish it before going for a smoke.

Future Plans  Speaking at St Claude Child Care Centre’s AGM to introduce Starss and Triple P  Workshop at PAHS – Oct.  Workshop at The Door – Oct.  Training for Families First Workers  Meeting with local daycare ED to introduce Starss and possibilities of workshop for parents.

Starss Coffee Break A drop in coffee break where Mom’s can take a break and we will read the I’m a STAR Mom newsletter and have a discussion about its contents. Maybe a short craft Still in the planning stage

 Matured Stars  The majority of my moms smoke outside already but have a problem getting the grandparents to understand why they need to smoke away from the children.  So we are hoping to have a day where we invite the grandparents for coffee and talk a little about our programs, have the grandchildren make a star craft for Grandma  (we all know how that touches Grandma’s heart). See if Grandma would like to join us again another day for a Starss information sharing session.

 Train my 4 co-workers so they can pass on info to parents.  I will be putting up Starss posters and having the kids decorate stars.  Slowly integrate the Starss materials and info to get parents interested.  I find that once you get the parents asking questions, it is very easy to get and keep them interested.

 Thanks to Wendy and her staff for all the “heavy lifting” in this project, for work done relentlessly day in day out. For teaching us all how to effectively implement Starss in our work, and how to make it a part of what we do everyday. Thanks for a truly worth while program that is so easy to add to our already busy program schedules.