Who We Are

|We are about change – about social impact – about ensuring the lives of the families with whom we work are, in fact, better than before we started working together

The Mothers Matter Centre (MMC) — previously known as the Home Instruction Program for Parents of Preschool Youngsters (HIPPY) Canada — is a not-for-profit, registered charity incorporated in October 2001. We are a virtual, national consortium of organizations dedicated to serving socially isolated and low economic status mothers and their families using our proven mother-to-mother approach.

We work with isolated mothers where they live – at home – connecting them with other mothers in their communities who share an intimate awareness of the issues and challenges they face.

Since our inception, the Mothers Matter Centre has helped more than 14,000 mothers gain new skills and abilities essential to strengthening mother-child relationships. This means at least 14,000 children and families were better prepared to get the most from their early school experiences.

Piloted in Canada in 2000 at the Britannia Community Service Centre in Vancouver, BC, our foundational program — HIPPY— has grown to 23 sites each of which helps 35 – 100 families each year. The HIPPY programs are operated by settlement and Aboriginal social purpose organizations (SPOs) and First Nations communities. We will continue to grow and sustain HIPPY while developing other program innovations such as housing assistance, job-skills training, literacy and language training, healthcare, and more.

We are committed to a comprehensive performance management process (PMP) that holds itself accountable to its stakeholders, funders and, most important, to the families it serves. This process gives us real-time data needed to adjust programming strategies to better serve clients. The performance management approach helps us and our partners measure and understand the process of change.

Our Three Pillars of Change

Once isolated, at-risk mothers develop the knowledge and capacity they need to take control of their lives and become effective parents and engaged citizens. The work of the Mothers Matter Centre is consolidated in three pillars of change:

Scale a high-profile, sustainable, evidence-based social initiative called the Mothers Matter Centre.

Inspire social change by innovating, implementing, and supporting evidence-based programs in collaboration with Canadian communities that are motivated to support full inclusion of isolated mothers and their families. Inspire activities will include Aboriginal and Multicultural HIPPY, professional education and program innovations.

Lead Canada in a movement for the social and economic inclusion of isolated women with research, knowledge-sharing and advocacy. Our work will continue to be research-based, with continuous program monitoring and refinement. We are committed to high-quality performance management standards, external evaluation and sharing of knowledge.