Early childhood development programs for on-Reserve, off-Reserve (including urban) First Nations, Inuit and Métis children ages three to six and their families. The Federally-funded Aboriginal Head Start (AHS) is designed to meet the spiritual, emotional, intellectual and physical needs of the child. All projects are sponsored, designed and implemented by indigenous nonprofit organizations in the local community. Each AHS project stresses traditional knowledge and pride in indigenous heritage, good nutrition, healthy lifestyles and preparation for school. Parents and families are encouraged to be involved in all aspects of program development, delivery, management and evaluation. AHS also provides a focal point for non-reserve-based indigenous communities to organize themselves around the needs of their children and to revitalize indigenous cultures and languages.

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Programs that provide problem-solving consultation and advice for parents and child care providers to support children who are experiencing behavioural or emotional challenges in their child care setting that put them at risk for losing access to their child care. The program aims to ensure the success of all children in child care and increase the number of families and child care providers who effectively nurture the social and emotional development of young children in licensed child care programs. Services include observation and assessment, home visits, child care site visits, behaviour management strategies for the child care setting and the home, adaptations in the child care environment, team planning and community referrals, and staff training. The programs differ from community to community in a number of ways including the type of services provided (behavioural-oriented versus therapy-oriented), the credentials of professionals providing the service (licensed therapists, behaviourists, early childhood specialists/educators), and the degree to which they work individually with children and families.

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Facilities that promote healthy child development by offering a variety of activities, resources and information for parents/caregivers and children from birth to age six. Families are encouraged to drop in or may participate in a variety of scheduled activities and programs such as playgroups; early learning, parenting and life skills instruction; nutrition programs; and toy libraries. Outreach services and programs for expectant couples may also be included.

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Programs that provide a wide variety of social services that are designed to support the healthy development of families, improve family interaction skills and help fragile families to resolve their problems at a pre-crisis stage before they become unmanageable. Services may be centre-based or provided on an outreach basis to families who are initially reluctant to seek support and generally target the specific needs of a particular community. Included may be self-sufficiency programs which help families break the cycle of poverty by addressing the barriers to self-sufficiency; early child development and school success programs; programs which address the needs of teen parents; programs which target parents at risk for becoming abusive; programs for families with children who have special developmental needs and programs that focus on the maternal and child health care needs of first-time, expectant women whose babies are at high risk for low birth weight and infant mortality.

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Programs that employ the Wraparound Facilitation model, a family centred, community-oriented, strengths based and highly individualized approach to meet the needs of children with complicated, multi-dimensional problems. The approach involves the development of a child and family team which creates and implements a wraparound plan that identifies a set of community services and natural supports to promote success, safety, and permanence in home, school and community. The Wraparound facilitator coordinates team meetings and ensures the team identifies and prioritizes goals, provides crisis and safety planning, and tracks the family's progress towards goal attainment. The family is prepared and supported as they transition from formal services to independence. While the major initiative to develop Wraparound Facilitation originated with the mental health system and has been particularly successful for children and adolescents with severe emotional and behavioural problems, the intervention is being employed in a number of other child service sectors including education, juvenile justice and child welfare.

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