The F-Words of Child Development
Inspired by decades of research, in 2011 CanChild’s Dr Peter Rosenbaum and Dr. JW Gorter published a paper called “The F-Words of Childhood Disability: I swear this is how we should all think!”
With no one factor more important than another, it’s now widely accepted that these 6 words should be the focus of childhood disability – functioning, family, fitness, fun, friends and future.
And these ideas are for everyone!
The Envisage Program has focused on how they can be used by children and their families and caregivers, and the people who work with them including health professionals, educators and community.
Functioning - This refers to what people do – how things are done is not important!
Family – represents the essential ‘environment’ of all children
Fitness – refers to your child’s physical and mental wellbeing
Fun – including activities your child enjoys and things you enjoy together!
Friends – refers to the friendships established with others
Future – this is what life is all about!
In Workshop 1 of the Envisage Families Program, we delve into the F-Words. Workshop 1 of our 5-workshop series is titled “What is health and wellbeing in early child and family development?”
We absolutely understand that receiving this information can be life changing for some families, and during this workshop, and the entirety of the program, our goal is to empower you and support you through this experience.
In this workshop we introduce the concept of the F-Words to enable you to recognise and celebrate your child’s strengths and possibilities for the future and to think about different ways and times to use the F-words to communicate with health and early childhood professionals and make decisions about the messages you want to communicate:
· About your child
· About your family
· About your priorities and goals – both immediate and longer term.
The F-Words tool also helps your child tell their story.
When we asked our participants recently to tell us what were the main things they learned from the Envisage Program, here’s what one of our participants said:
“The F words! It’s given me structure to start thinking about my child's vision and story to connect with myself and share with others in his care”. Being able to focus on my child's strengths and what he loves and what he is learning - this is helping me in looking for more opportunities in our homeschooling life”
We’d love you to reach out and ask us more about the F-Words, or secure a fully funded place by registering in our Envisage Families 5-workshop series program.
