A) We Appreciate Your Contribution

Thank you to community residents, staff and partners of Better Beginnings Better Futures, for their participation and collaboration in this project. The Research Working Group offered helpful insight, energy and a valuable voice. The meaningful and appropriate book title ‘The Healing Effects of Caring’ was borrowed from the title of a story submitted in writing, and the author has graciously accepted to offer it as the overall title of this book. Finally, a very special ‘Thank You’ to all of you who offered these generous gifts, in sharing your very personal stories. We can all learn a great deal from your courage and sincerity.

B) Where These Stories Come From

The key purpose of this project has been to understand people’s experience with Better Beginnings, Better Futures from their own perspective. It was decided that the best way to understand people’s experience would be to meet with people and hear their stories from their own perspective. These stories originate from people who have been or who are residents of the community, and who have also had a meaningful experience with Better Beginnings, Better Futures. Over several months in 1996, many names were proposed by community residents, agency representatives on committees, and staff. The Research Working Group then painstakingly selected people with varying perspectives. Finally, people of different ages, genders, cultures, languages, and life experience shared their stories with the Site Researcher, from March to June 1997.

Each person was met with privately, mainly in their own home. So as not to miss anything that was said, each meeting was taped-recorded. Each tape was later listened to and every word was transcribed (written on paper). The meetings lasted between 30 minutes and one hour and a half. In all, 14 people told their stories, and another four people offered their stories in writing. The Research Working Group thought that stories should appear as they were told. Therefore, the stories have essentially remained intact. Only necessary changes were made to eliminate repetitiveness and, most importantly, to protect people’s identities.

C) We Feel In Our Own Language

The conversations were held in the person’s language of choice, seeing as our innermost thoughts and feelings are best expressed in our own language. Out of the 14, 10 people spoke English, three in Somali, and one in French. Unfortunately, all stories could not be presented in this book in many languages. While the stories appear in English, the Somali and French stories appear in their own languages. In the case of the Somali stories, an Interpreter assisted in the conversation. However, an Interpreter was not needed for the story told in French, as the Site Researcher was bilingual. The written versions for both languages were translated by the Interpreter and the Site Researcher.