With their new violin program, Glowing Hearts Charity has involved parents in their children's learning and mental health development.
Teacher Janice Lamarre, who has over 20 years of experience in teaching violin, says that she provides the parents with material to learn how to play the violin themselves as their children watch.
"Not only are the parents learning to play so they can teach their kids, they're learning it to know that it's challenging to play the violin," she says.
Lamarre has taught university level at Yale, Julliard and pre-college level at Manhattan School of Music.
She says if a child is having trouble playing, it might just take them more time or a different approach and this is where empathy for learning can be found within the parent-to-child relationship.
Managing Director and Board Chair at Glowing Hearts, Sarah Fleming, says limited resources and opportunities have an impact on a child and their growth. She says her goal is to reduce those barriers and have more children who are from lower-income households to be able to have the same opportunities as other kids across Simcoe County.
"You have to be precise with how you practice playing the violin and that's how you get better which transfers to learning anything," Fleming says.
Glowing Hearts Charity works to disrupt the cycle of poverty by providing programs that support the mental health, growth and development of school-aged children and youth across the county.
When asked specifically about the violin program, Fleming says it is beyond brain development and fine motor skills.
Fleming and Lamarre have both worked together to create this new way of learning and finalized that the best result is for the parents to learn first.
"I think involving the parents and having that connection is amazing," Fleming says, "It transfers to not just music but other things at home as well."
For the first two weeks of the program, only the parents could learn and not children, Lamarre says. She says there is psychology to it in a way that is also applicable to other subjects.
Glowing Hearts Charity provides music programs open to all children and youth in the county regardless of the household financial situation. With a low fee for those who can afford it and no cost for those who can't, the charity provides mental health counselling, the backpack program, food programs, and more, and now adding the violin program for grades 2-5.
"The secret is really supporting everyone and what they need, whether they're more advanced or behind, it's all about being a part of a group," Lamarre says.
Visit the Glowing Hearts Charity website for more information.
Banner Image: Glowing Hearts Charity
