All Children and Youth Thrive!

By Elisabeth Wells, PhD, Our Kids Network Research and Knowledge Mobilization Manager

The Halton Youth Impact Survey is our opportunity to understand how our young people are doing, and how decision-makers can support young people in our communities.

Halton was invited to participate in the UNICEF Canada Child & Youth Wellbeing Survey (Halton Youth Impact Survey), supported by UNICEF Canada, the Canadian Index of Wellbeing, Medivae Foundation, and the Ontario Trillium Foundation. Halton is one of four communities participating in this project, which will be used to develop a national index of child and youth wellbeing. OKN is leading the implementation of the survey here in Halton and helping UNICEF build a survey that will be used across Canada.

Important NEW data

Our community has been facing a gap in comprehensive, local data about child and youth wellbeing. The Halton Youth Impact Survey provides an opportunity for OKN and Halton to collect and share new, quality, local data and evidence to support the delivery of programs, services, policies and initiatives that are critical to the wellbeing of children, youth and families in Halton.

The survey is for children between 9 and 18 years-old. It measures key factors related to child and youth development and wellbeing, such as connection to family, schools, community and peers, physical and mental health, participation in extracurricular activities, safety and leisure, and risk behaviours such as smoking and drug use.

OKN is deeply committed to making data free and accessible to anyone who wants to use it. We will use the data to support the needs of all of our community partners working with young people. We expect to start sharing the results back with the community in late Fall through various learning events, reports, webinars, workshops, community presentations and in the data portal. Not only will we be sharing the results, but we will be providing tools and resources to help professionals access and use the results to support their work.

By the community, for the community

We built this survey with you and for you. The survey content, and the promotional strategy, have largely been developed by our community partners. Over the last few months, we reached out and met with numerous professionals and youth to ensure your voices are at the center of the project. Through these meetings, we heard loud and clear about how our community partners are supporting youth engagement, and how critical it is to have new data about youth wellbeing. Read about how our community partners are planning to use the results from the survey!

Peer-to-peer

There are just over 76,000 youth in Halton between 9 and 18 years of age. My goal is to hear from as many of our young people as possible. We need many diverse youth voices from across Halton to participate so we can learn what life is like for youth right now. We have 27 different neighbourhoods in Halton, and we know that each community is unique. That’s why we want to hear from youth across Halton – tell us about your community and what wellbeing means to you in Acton, East Milton, South East Oakville or Aldershot, for example. We want all youth to have a strong voice in the project so that, ultimately, they will have a strong voice in the programs, services and initiatives that impact them in their communities.

To help us do that, our peer-to-peer engagement strategy was developed in partnership with the Halton Youth Initiative through youth labs, community meetings and the creation of our Halton Youth Impact Ambassador team. Youth are promoting the survey in their own networks, and our team Ambassadors are leading this campaign.

Make an IMPACT! Help us get the word out!

The campaign runs until Monday, June 14. As a professional working with children and youth in Halton, we know you want to have a positive impact on the lives of young people in our communities. You can make a difference by encouraging youth in your networks to do the survey and have a say in matters that effect them. The Community Partner Promotional Kit is full of information about the survey and resources to use in promoting it. Download your kit from Dropbox or Google Drive or visit the Halton Youth Impact Survey webpage.