OKN’s Indigenous Reconciliation initiative considers Truth and Reconciliation as two distinct entities, as illustrated above. Learn more about this graphic in our Indigenous Reconciliation Strategy.

Children spend a great deal of their first 8 years learning in schools, thus, how schools connect to their community is important. Progress in this area will show good connections between schools, parents, community resources and the local neighbourhood.
Indicators:

  • Parental involvement in schools
  • Youth as resources
  • Volunteerism
  • Community use of schools
Children thrive in neighbourhoods that are safe and connected. Neighbourhoods that can meet all of our needs are valued.
Indicators:

  • Neighbourhood safety
  • Neighbourhood cohesion
  • Walkability
  • Caring for the community
Safe environments benefit children by providing a sense of personal security that allows them to take maximum advantage of learning, playing and making new friendships.
Indicators:

  • Child care capacity
  • Quality child care
  • Parenting capacity
  • Parental monitoring
  • Quality time at home with family
Safe environments benefit children by providing a sense of personal security that allows them to take maximum advantage of learning, playing and making new friendships.
Indicators:

  • Serious injury
  • At-risk behaviours
  • Safety from harm
All children need positive connections to their parents/caregivers, peers, school and community.
Indicators:

  • Supportive and caring environments
  • Boundaries and expectations
  • Commitment to learning
  • Positive values
  • Social competencies

Learning is one of the cornerstones for success in life and starts at birth. Community progress for this result will show that children are learning both in their preschool and school years.
Indicators:

  • Preschool learning opportunities
  • Student achievement (EQAO)
  • Healthy body weight
  • School engagement

Good health is a prerequisite for positive outcomes for children and youth. Both physical and emotional health are valued in this result. In addition, given the critical brain development that takes place in the first 12 months of life, infant health is closely monitored.
Indicators:

  • At-risk births
  • Healthy eating
  • Healthy body weight
  • Physical activity
  • Mental health

Turning The Curve

Halton Youth Impact Survey Results

Are recreation and leisure opportunities accessible to all children and youth in Halton?

A bunch of students walk together with colorful backpacks on their back

Findings reflect the responses of 1915 youth in the 13 to 18 age range.

Recommendations For Action

Ultimately, every person will have their own perspective on how well Halton youth are doing and some issues will be perceived as more important than others. Regardless of any perspective, the next step is to share the insights gained from this bulletin and begin conversations about what the results mean and how we might respond. Based on these conversations, you will determine which issues you need to act upon.

This is referred to as “turning the curve”. In other words, you want to take action on indicators that reflect a negative trend in order to turn the trend or curve in a more positive direction. The following is an easy tool designed by Mark Friedman, developer of Results Based Accountability (www.raguide.org), that can move you from talk to action in 45 to 60 minutes. We suggest you use this tool as a way to discuss the results in this bulletin and the detailed data available online at www.ourkidsnetwork.ca.

How to get started
Turning the Curve
Advancing beyond this data
As you take the steps to move the data into action, consider reflecting on what we still need to understand.

  • Is something missing from these key findings?
  • Has your organization identified an area that should be explored further?
  • How can we work together to address these knowledge gaps?

Limitations

  • This bulletin covers only responses of youth in the 13-18 age range.
  • Open invitation sampling strategy (non-probabilistic).
  • Sample is not necessarily representative of all children and youth living in Halton.
  • It is not possible to determine a response rate.
  • However, considering the geographic coverage and the size of the final sample, it’s fair to assume that we have a reasonably good cross-section of children and youth living in Halton.
  • A higher degree of diversity within this sample calls for caution when interpreting overall ratios. For more details on the composition of the sample see the sociodemographic table.
  • The data are meant to provide a snapshot of youth wellbeing during COVID, and caution should be used when comparing across time.
  • While each indicator is important, using multiple indicators as evidence of strengths and needs provides a more comprehensive representation.
  • This is a self-report survey and several types of response bias have been identified related to self-report surveys. Use caution when interpreting the findings.
OKN organization graphic