Helena Raises Awareness For Less Fortunate Children and Families

The Department of Public Health and Human Services will kick off the Great Beginnings, Great Families conference tomorrow July 7th at the Great Northern Best Western in Helena. The purpose of the conference is to increase the knowledge of early childhood systems and infrastructure and enhance family support best practices.

"It's a conference that helps support connecting families in communities for a child's best beginning," Program Coordinator for Maternal and early Childhood Home Visiting Leslie Lee said. "We have three keynote speakers and we have workshops that really pertain to supporting young children and families."

One of these workshops include a poverty simulation experience.

"The room will be set up with various organizations, we will have volunteers at each station and they take on the role of some type of agency that the family may have to encounter," Lee said. "Then the participants go through as though they were a family. They are able to experience what it may be like to be in poverty, and some of the barriers and challenges they face on a daily basis."

The events will go until Thursday. Registration begins tomorrow, July 7th at 8 am at the Great Northern Best Western in Helena. For more information visit http://dphhs.mt.gov/gbgfconference.