Thank you for the question. It's critical.
One of my first jobs out of university was working at a drop-in centre in downtown Toronto called Native Child and Family Services. We would often see young street women or young mothers coming in who were pregnant. We would help them with parenting programs, bring them through their pregnancy until the child was born, and make sure they had proper nutrition. And as those children grew, we would make sure the mother and the child had access to programs, which in part probably seeded some of my passion, which you heard with respect to the single aboriginal woman in downtown Winnipeg.
The federal government is leading in three important ways right now. I think they're successful interventions, and I think they need to be grown. The first is a community action plan for children. It's been very successful in communities all across the country in providing services. I believe it's up for renewal, if it hasn't been renewed already. And it's one of those projects that really impacts people where they live and assures that there's access to programs. The related one is the Canada prenatal nutrition program, which clearly speaks specifically to what you're speaking about. And I think there's a mixed bag of other interventions across the country, which may be municipally funded, may have their own source of revenue, or may be provincially funded as well, that groups have been engaged in.
The other really important project is the aboriginal head start program, for ensuring that when these families who are disenfranchised have an opportunity to actually move forward, they have successfully integrated programs in place.
Maybe I'll give my colleague Conrad Saulis an opportunity to talk about the importance of that particular program and what can or should be done.