HIPPY

HIPPY fêtes trailblazer

Carol Slater (photo from mothersmattercentre.ca)

Carol Slater, a former vice-president of National Council of Jewish Women of Canada, was presented with the first-ever Trailblazers Award for helping bring to Canada an innovative Israeli-founded education program that empowers mothers of preschool children.

The award, presented by the Mothers Matter Centre, was part of a virtual event May 5. (See jewishindependent.ca/mothers-importance.)

Slater was one of a small group of people who brought the program Home Instruction for Parents of Preschool Youngsters (HIPPY) to Canada two decades ago. The initiative, which has taken off in countries worldwide, began out of the Britannia Community Centre and Britannia Community Secondary School, in East Vancouver. The national headquarters of the program remains in Vancouver, under the auspices of the Mothers Matter Centre. HIPPY Canada changed its name in 2017 to the Mothers Matter Centre to reflect the fact that they deliver a range of programs, although HIPPY remains the core of the organization.

Slater spoke with the Independent recently, along with Wazi Dlamini-Kapenda, a Vancouverite who was the first HIPPY director in Canada and remains head of the national program.

HIPPY was started in 1969 at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem by the late Dr. Avima Lombard.

“When the first wave of African immigrants came to Israel and spoke no Hebrew, [Lombard] realized the disconnect between the children and the parents,” Slater said. “The parents didn’t know what was expected of the children, or of the parents.”

Slater and Dlamini-Kapenda take pride in the relative simplicity of the HIPPY structure. A new program is developed when a community identifies HIPPY as a program that would be of benefit to mothers and children. The community then approaches the Mothers Matter Centre to help with starting it up. In other cases, MMC approaches the community to let them know about the program and support them in implementing it, providing seed funding to get it off the ground, said Dlamini-Kapenda. The community can start with a minimum of two to four home visitors, depending on the size of the community, then each visitor recruits 10 to 12 families. The home visitor drops in on each family every week for at least an hour during the school year, and teaches the mother the week’s activities using the HIPPY curriculum. The lessons are taught using role-play, in which the home visitor and the mother take turns being the teacher (mother) and the student (child), practising the lesson before the mother teaches the week’s lessons to their preschooler.

“The basis of this program is that all parents want the best for their children, all parents want their children to succeed and to enter school ready to learn,” said Dlamini-Kapenda. “The parents themselves can play a role in this in building capacity within the home. Instead of parents relying on sending their children to preschool, which some parents couldn’t afford, we could go into the home, which is actually important because the home is where success begins. We all know that.”

“One of the very critical things,” Slater said, “is giving the parent the confidence that she can go to [her child’s] school because what has very often happened in immigrant situations is that the mother may not speak the language very well and, if she doesn’t go to school, she doesn’t follow her child and if she doesn’t follow her child, her child can fall behind and she doesn’t know about it. One of the most important things is the empowerment of the parent to understand that she is the first teacher of her children. It’s a fantastic concept when you think of it. So simple.”

The program is offered free to mothers and all supplies are provided, although almost everything that the mother will need to do activities can be found in the home. The families targeted for the HIPPY program are those with low literacy or deemed “at risk.” Special emphasis is given to immigrant and refugee communities and Indigenous populations. HIPPY has separate streams for multicultural and Indigenous families, recognizing different approaches to learning. Home visitors will usually be recruited from within the linguistic communities they serve.

Slater’s award recognizes her work in getting HIPPY off the ground in 2001.

“Carol was very instrumental in getting the funding and knocking on doors and talking to every person in a position to be able to get us the first funding to run the first four or five years of the program here in Canada,” said Dlamini-Kapenda. “I don’t know, without Carol, how far we would have gone.”

Dr. Debbie Bell, founding director of Simon Fraser University’s community education program, was working on developing strategies to create access to education for low-literacy communities. Slater and Bell connected after Slater happened upon a brochure about the nascent program. Slater, who has lived in Israel, Vancouver and, now, Montreal, saw it as an ideal fit for National Council of Jewish Women.

Seizing the moment, Slater beat the bushes for financing. Bell was emphatic that they should not launch HIPPY without a budget for several years of programming because that would be unfair to participating families. Slater went to Ottawa and, with the help of several key figures, obtained funding from the federal health ministry to get HIPPY up and running.

She credits Dr. Hedy Fry, member of Parliament for Vancouver-Centre, as an early supporter.

“She was so excited about the program,” Slater recalled. “She met Debbie and myself and we used to meet in her office. She sat me at a desk, she gave me a list of all the cabinet ministers and their secretaries and their private phone numbers. I just sat there and I phoned.”

An assistant to Allan Rock, who was then minister of health, was equally supportive. Slater left the meeting with a commitment for $250,000, which jumpstarted HIPPY Canada.

Slater also credits late Vancouver philanthropist Jack Diamond and the Diamond Foundation for crucial support that got the program started. The Vancouver Foundation also committed to four years of funding, something they had never done before, said Dlamini-Kapenda, who was then hired as the first HIPPY coordinator in Canada.

At the awards ceremony earlier this month, Canada’s chief public health officer, Dr. Theresa Tam, and Dr. Cindy Blackstock, a Gitxsan activist for child welfare and a professor in McGill University’s School of Social Work, received the Because Mothers Matter Award for their noteworthy professional accomplishments while giving back to their community. Two HIPPY mothers with extraordinary stories, Nusrat Awan and Jessica Seegerts, were also honoured.

Mothers’ importance

One of the countless beneficiaries of the HIPPY (Home Instruction for Parents of Preschool Youngsters) program, which was brought to Canada by National Council of Jewish Women of Canada, Vancouver. (photo from Mothers Matter Centre)

It doesn’t matter if you’re famous, it doesn’t matter if you’re obscure – what you do as a mother matters.

National Council of Jewish Women of Canada (NCJWC) Vancouver knows how much mothers matter. It continues to be a trailblazer, an advocate, a constant pillar of support for women and children, for more than 97 years.

The NCJWC Vancouver universe is full of shining lights, women who are committed to their communities and serve as models for their unique role in leading social change. These stars include Carol Slater, soon to be the Trailblazer honouree of the awards night hosted by the Mothers Matter Centre. She and the Kort sisters – Alisa, Beverley and Suzanne – are passionate about the program originally known as HIPPY.

Slater knew, when she first heard about HIPPY (Israel’s Home Instruction for Parents of Preschool Youngsters) from reports in Israel and the United States, that she had to bring it to Vancouver. The program works in the home with vulnerable and isolated mothers. Slater knew that mothers are the first and most important teachers of the child and that the program would provide the essential tools and skills for them.

photo - Another beneficiary of HIPPY — Another beneficiary of HIPPY. *(photo from Mothers Matter Centre)*

In 2000, she convinced NCJWC Vancouver to initiate a project, partnering with Simon Fraser University, an institute that trains educators with academic rigour, and the Britannia Community Centre, known for its vibrant presence in the heart of immigrant Vancouver. Now, 20 years later, on May 5, 2021, Slater was recognized as a Trailblazer by the Mothers Matter Centre, which now delivers the HIPPY program on a national level.

More shining stars are coming out that night for special awards: Dr. Cindy Blackstock, a prominent indigenous leader; Dr. Theresa Tam, the director of Canada’s Public Health Agency; Gloria Macarenko, Vancouver’s beloved broadcaster, as host; and an appearance by Sophie Gregoire Trudeau, wife of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Of critical importance to Vancouver’s council section are the Kort sisters, who have followed the philanthropic path of their late mother Shirley Kort, z’l. These shining stars have made a five-year scholarship commitment enabling qualified mothers (who are part of the Mothers Matter Program) to complete academic and professional qualifications. Azeema, one of the seven recipients of the scholarship, had this to say: “It paid for my two courses; it was a great financial help. It was above and beyond my expectations and I am very thankful. The Kort Family Fund joined hands with an immigrant to take steps and for them to help out. I am a step closer to my goal. I did not have to worry about finances this semester.”

HIPPY (now the Mothers Matter Centre) is a demonstration of Margaret Mead’s eloquent observation: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

National Council of Jewish Women in Vancouver is 97 years young and, while they are not giant in size, they are giant in deed.

– Courtesy National Council of Jewish Women Vancouver

NCJW pays tribute to Poliakoff

Left to right: former National Council of Jewish Women Vancouver section president Shirley Hyman; Gloria Hendin, tribute committee chair; Barbara Heller, longtime supporter of council; Marion Poliakoff, the guest of honour; Bonnie Gertsman, former Vancouver section president; Anne Melul, former Vancouver section membership chair; and Debby Altow, past president, Vancouver section. (photo by Joanne Emerman)

National Council of Jewish Women hosted a tea at Temple Sholom on Jan. 9 to celebrate Marion Poliakoff, a true Renaissance woman. At 94 years young, she continues to be an inspiration to council members past and present.

Poliakoff’s career and her personal life demonstrate the principles of NCJW: fostering multiculturalism, alleviating poverty among women and children, supporting family counseling in Israel through ALUMA, and cherishing music and family. Her commitment to clear and convincing communication has been a boon to many newsletter writers – and she continues to edit us closely.

Gloria Hendin, who chaired the event committee, welcomed everyone. Shelagh Stoller bought the gift for Poliakoff, which Shirley Hyman presented. Barbara Heller managed all the banner decorations, Bonnie Gertsman and Anne Melul organized the food, and Judy Stern greeted guests as they arrived. The entertainment came courtesy of Poliakoff’s daughter, Amy Poliakoff, who brought her flute from Boston. I delivered the tribute speech, which I share below.

Vancouver section president Catherine Stoller set the tone for the annual general meeting that followed the celebration. “Looking backward, we recall our ancestry. Looking forward, we confront our destiny,” she said. The board of directors was installed by Shanie Levin with those words ringing in their ears!

In preparing my remarks, I read Melul’s biographical notes on Poliakoff, Carol Weinstock’s article on NCJW in the Jewish Museum and Archives of British Columbia’s journal, The Scribe, and the book More Than Just Mrs.: Jewish Women’s Organizations in B.C., as well as the council’s cookbook. Of course, I also spoke with many council members who worked with Poliakoff, and reflected on my own personal experiences with her. With some minor editing, to reflect their publication after the event, my remarks follow.

Marion was born in the United States. Holding a bachelor’s from Simmons College in Massachusetts and a master’s in journalism from New York’s Columbia University, she married Mel Poliakoff in 1949, adopting Mel’s son Merrill at the same time. Although at first they were unable to live in Tenafly, N.J., because, as Jews, they could not buy a house there, nevertheless they did move there a few years later. She became the first Jew elected to public office, serving on the board of education.

In 1972, she moved to West Vancouver with her husband and their daughters Amy and Nan. They loved tennis, skiing and sailing. Sadly, Merrill and Nan are gone, but many of Marion’s family were able to join the council’s tribute.

When Marion met Bess Narod – Bess is from Ottawa; I knew her family back home – they went to an NCJW meeting, and that was the start of Marion’s connection with council. The first big item she worked on, the hearing screening project in schools, demonstrated council’s mission: identify a need, pilot a response, make it a success and turn it over to government. The Vancouver health department now runs it.

Marion also met Rita Weintraub, who became a lifelong friend. Together, they have worked to support the Isaac Waldman Jewish Public Library at the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver.

Meanwhile, Marion got another master’s degree – from the University of British Columbia’s School of Social Work – and, through a field placement at Britannia Community Centre, became interested in multicultural issues. Always the consummate writer, she contributed the Multicultural Corner column to the monthly newsletter of the B.C. Association of Social Workers; another column went into the Britannia newsletter, which was translated into Italian and Chinese.

The City of Vancouver grabbed Marion and she ran parenting groups for mothers in three community centres – using translators for Farsi, Chinese and Italian participants. In 1981, she received the Social Worker of the Year Award from the B.C. Association of Social Workers for her multicultural work.

I met her when I was the director of communications for the Canadian Cancer Society and she was a social worker at the B.C. Cancer Agency. I was working on breast cancer issues, with multicultural projects for Chinese and South Asian women. We found we had much in common.

Marion was also the one who called me every year to pay my NCJW dues, even though I was not an active volunteer in those years. She recruited me after I retired to join the board and, 13 years later, I’m still on it in one capacity or another.

In 1991, HIPPY (Home Instruction for Parents of Preschool Youngsters) was brought to Canada from Israel as a council initiative by Carol Slater. Ever alert to new connections, Marion linked Britannia, along with Simon Fraser University, to council as our community partners to launch the HIPPY project. She was intimately involved in establishing its work with immigrant mothers and their families. While its name has changed to the Mothers Matter Centre, HIPPY remains one of council’s programs, and Wazi Kapenda, its Western director, was in attendance at the tribute.

Marion’s volunteering extended to driving people to services at Congregation Har El, eventually donating her beloved baby grand piano to the shul, fundraising for the synagogue, and cooking and serving food weekly to needy and homeless people at Harvest House.

Later, she joined the North Shore Osteoporosis Society, organizing monthly speakers. I spoke at one gathering and there were more than 100 people attending – a not uncommon number!

Her commitment to ALUMA (formerly the Israel Family Counseling Agency) was, and continues to be, an inspiration. She fought for support for ALUMA in council, because the organization was dedicated to supporting people in Israel who could not afford professional counseling but who desperately needed it. And Judy Stern could always count on Marion to canvass for Friends and Angels, council’s only annual fundraiser.

Marion’s was a home where music was loved and valued, even after the piano was gone. She supported the Vancouver Symphony, the Vancouver Chamber Music Society and Music in the Morning. Music continues to be a tree of life for many of her family members. Her close friend Shirley Lecker is part of that tradition.

Do you see a thread unspooling here – with HIPPY, with anti-poverty issues, with a commitment to Jewish values, with a passion for family, with a professional eye for communication, with an abiding love of music? When I said Renaissance woman, the label is legitimate.

It is such an honour to acknowledge Marion for her work with council – and with many of us personally. It is beyond words. To simply say thank you is really inadequate. But, from the bottom of my heart, and from all of us, thank you, Marion.

HIPPY ventures into Asia

HIPPY, developed in 1969, is being used by some 20,000 families in various countries. (photo from HIPPY International)

For the first time ever, HIPPY (Home Instruction for Parents and Preschool Youngsters) will be setting up offices in Southeast Asia.

HIPPY is an early learning program developed by researchers in 1969. It is already being used by 20,000 families in Argentina, Australia, Austria, Canada, Germany, Israel, Liberia, New Zealand and the United States.

As explained on the HIPPY Canada website, the program “delivers a curriculum based on the needs of children to become school-ready; recognizes role-play as the method of teaching the skills needed to implement the child-centred curriculum; and features a peer home visitor system that enables mothers, who may be hard to reach due to social isolation, poverty, language or other cultural issues, to feel comfortable participating in the program.”

“HIPPY has the same core program across the world. In each country, it is adapted to the cultural and linguistic context,” Miriam Westheimer, director of HIPPY International, told the Independent.

In addition to its Southeast Asia offices, other HIPPY news includes a major expansion in Argentina, progress with the program’s digitization and the development of a HIPPY app.

As well, HIPPY’s program in Liberia continues to grow and is now a part of the government’s early childhood strategic plan. The program was originally funded by Friends of Liberia, a group comprised of former Peace Corps volunteers. For the past three years, it has been funded through the Open Society Foundation and is now a ministry of education program.

In Korea and China, HIPPY will introduce a fee for the program, creating a revenue stream Westheimer hopes will allow for more programs in developing countries.

“Typically, once we start a pilot program in a new country, we can then attract policy-makers and funders to help sustain and grow the program,” she said. “What’s interesting is that the models in Korea and China are the first programs working with a higher-education parent population and the pilot project starting there sells the program to upper-middle-income families who can purchase it.”

It’s HIPPY’s first for-profit venture. Typically, the program is free-of-charge and relies on volunteers and community participation, but the agencies and organizations in Korea and China that approached HIPPY wanted to do this as an entrepreneurial project.

“We see it as an opportunity to raise some money so we can do this in countries where we haven’t been able to work yet, developing countries,” said Westheimer. “There are several African countries very interested and we don’t have the start-up [funds] to be able to start working there. We’re looking at this as a model for how we can benefit from the sale of the program, if it does indeed take off, to raise funds to support other new countries in the network.”

“We just started a pilot in Asia,” said Westheimer. “We started with 60 families. Now, we are working with 120 families. We hope to double or triple this next year, but it’s growing slowly. The idea is that it could become part of the ministry of education’s plan and we’re laying the groundwork for it to become a national program.

“We started the same way in Argentina. We started in a few shantytowns in Buenos Aires. It started in a Jewish community, through AMIA, the Jewish community centre in Buenos Aires, and then, several other groups, childcare centres, built in these shantytowns around Buenos Aires.

Because of its success, the federal government has given a grant to expand to six provinces. They started 100 families in each of the six provinces.”

The model is also working well in a few European countries, such as Austria and Germany, where they have something they call “HIPPY-inspired programs.” For these programs, they take the basic concept of working with parents in the home, with home visits or group meetings, but not using the HIPPY-developed curriculum.

“They have their own curriculum,” said Westheimer. “So, we have HIPPY-inspired programs in Finland, Sweden, Turkey and Holland. The Turkey program is … the most remotely connected to the HIPPY network. The other ones are really part of our international network.”

The program in Turkey has been running for about 30 years, she said. While it began as a small HIPPY program, it has evolved into an independent one with really no connection to HIPPY.

For more information about HIPPY Canada, visit hippycanada.ca or call its office in Vancouver at 604-676-8250.

Rebeca Kuropatwa is a Winnipeg freelance writer.

Korts fund education

Sol and Shirley Kort (photo from Alisa Kort)

Catherine Stoller, president of the Vancouver section of the National Council of Jewish Women of Canada, announces the Shirley and Sol Kort Family Award to HIPPY, which will enable HIPPY home visitors to pursue higher education in an accredited program. The award, $5,000 annually for five years, will be divided between two qualified applicants, to be adjudicated by the HIPPY board of directors.

The HIPPY program, originating in Israel and now operating in many countries around the world, is dedicated to ensuring that immigrant and refugee women can achieve the training and education they need to support their families and create a better future. The Kort family thus continues the dedicated and creative work of Shirley Kort, who was a longtime member of NCJW, and one of the key supporters of establishing HIPPY here in Canada.

Both Shirley and Sol Kort were community activists, focusing largely on the immigrant community. They were equally committed to the role of education as the key to better lives for everyone.

NCJW of Canada will be celebrating its 120th birthday this year – the Vancouver section has a history of 96 years! NCJW’s commitment to education, service and social action is demonstrated locally, nationally and internationally. Its members have worked with immigrant and refugee agencies for decades and NCJW is proud to celebrate the Kort family’s dedication to these issues.