Report from the Chairperson

June 5, 2004: EINS Annual General Meeting

It has been another busy year for EINS as many of the initiatives that were started during the past two years were completed or are near completion.

The project, Foundations For Our Future, which was designed to produce a personnel policy for early interventionists in community programs in Nova Scotia, was completed in draft form. A meeting of representatives from community boards attended a meeting in Truro on April 24 to review the document and to make recommendations for a draft to be presented at a follow-up meeting on October 2, 2004. A final report on this project was presented to HRDC in April.

In October, EINS sponsored a conference with Dr. Louis Rossetti, an internationally recognized authority on effective services for infants, toddlers, and their families titled: Effective Practices in Assessment and Intervention for Infants and Toddlers with Special Needs, which was of interest to parents and professionals. The conference was well received and plans were tentatively made to have EINS bring him back in the future.

This year EINS continued to manage the Partnerships for Inclusion project with SpeciaLink. Funding to extend the project until March, 2006 was received from the Department of Community Services. This very successful project will be expanded to the Yarmouth in the fall as already noted by Carolyn Webber in her report.

Early Intervention Week in Nova Scotia was held in February and was again a very successful week. Many community programs had events and there were EINS provincial advertisement initiatives. Some community programs celebrated in new and improved locations from last year.

EINS is fortunate to have most of its board members returning for the next year. Board members who are not returning are Jamie Parker, Lauren Sprague, Mark McCelland, Mary Delaney and Joanne Ross. I as Chair, Margaret Ann Green and Barb Boiduk are leaving their positions on the executive. The EINS office in Antigonish will close. The Partnership for Inclusion office will remain in Antigonish. All documents related to EINS will be transferred to the new Chair.

I would like to thank the EINS board and the committees and their chairs for all of their hard work over the past year. Finally, I would like to thank the rest of the executive, Brenda Putnam, Vice-Chair, Sarah Melanson, Treasurer, Margaret Ann Green, Secretary, and Barb Boiduk, Past-Chair for their time and commitment to the mission of EINS.

Respectfully submitted,
Isabel den Heyer
EINS Chairperson

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