Based on the highly-acclaimed publications of the Canadian Child Care Federation (CCCF), Meeting the Challenge will be a multimedia, WWW-compatible, interactive learning environment and online community designed for parents and caregivers to guide them in implementing early preventive intervention with children at high risk for antisocial behaviour. Using a powerful combination of audio, full-motion video, text and colourful graphics, this essential resource will be informative, motivational, and entertaining.
The project will be implemented through an innovative 3-way partnership, with CCCF, the content experts, working together with Triune , a leader in educational video production/distribution and Random Access Multimedia Inc., a leader in interactive multimedia production and instructional design. The content will be developed and adapted from CCCF's popular Meeting the Challenge booklet and facilitators' guide, which has had a circulation of over 100,000 copies throughout Canada and the USA.
Meeting the Challenge assumes that prevention of antisocial behaviour is more effective than dealing with problems after they have appeared. Research suggests that efforts to prevent aggression should begin in early childhood when learning to control aggression is a normative developmental task.
Meeting the Challenge will offer both comprehensive information, Internet resources and moderated discussion boards to the general public and a 14 week facilitated online course that uses a mix of interactivity, rich media, group work and discussion to registered on-line participants. These e-learning tools will have the versatility to be used by a variety of caregivers from many different backgrounds and situations. The website will address the issues of children's antisocial behaviour that may result from changes in family structure and roles, or from demographic changes (consistent with migration patterns) that propagate cultural barriers to newcomers, prejudice and discrimination. As with all materials produced through the CCCF, the project will be culturally sensitive, recognizing the special needs of refugee and immigrant children and the adults who care for them.
Aggressive behaviour is one of the most difficult challenges that parents and child care practitioners have to deal with. The end result of the Meeting the Challenge project will be an expandable, sustainable site with a high degree of interactivity and quality of media, based on the experience and expertise of practitioners in the field.
This project is funded in part through the Government of Canada's National Crime Prevention Strategy.
