Revelstoke can give itself a big pat on the back when it comes to early learning development.

According to the Early Childhoood Development Mapping Project Revelstoke is the least vulnerable school district within B.C. at 12 per cent.

The Early Development Instrument gave kindergarten children a series of tests that included: physical health and well-being, social competence, emotional maturity, language and cognitive development, and communication skills and general knowledge. The test aimed to look at the amount of vulnerable children in a given neighbourhood (those children who scored in the bottom 10 per cent of all the tests)…

"There has been a lot of information out there in the last 10 years on early brain development," she said. "It never goes without saying, the early years matter."

While certain factors --genetics, parents, family, neighbourhood can have an effect on early development, HELP was most interested in learning about what neighbourhoods can do to help a child's development. And. Shroeder said, while ECD services do have an impact on early learning, "How we impact on childhood development is not going to hinge just on the program we have in the community.

"You can have programs that are ineffective or don't exist, but children are still improving."

While Revelstoke is now Number One in the province in terms of being the least vulnerable, during the first round of testing completed between 2002 and 2004, Revelstoke was fifth. This decrease in vulnerability has not been the trend across the province.

"In two-thirds of the school's in B.C. vulnerability has increased," said Schroeder. "One reason is we've gone in B.C. from being the province with the lowest proportion of children below the poverty line, to the highest proportion of children below the poverty line."

When asked by an audience member whether they were getting the information to the powers that be, Schroeder said HELP feels they are not entirely being heard.

"We don't see a lot of broad policy decisions in the interest of children, provincially or fenerally," she said…