Innovative project maps children's future
Vancouver Island News Group - Alberni Valley News
10 Nov 2006

EXCERPT

The authors of an early child development research project that has been underway in British Columbia since 2000 unveiled their Port Alberni results at the school board office Wednesday (Nov. 8). According to data results, Port Alberni has suffered a 4.7 per cent increase in child vulnerability over the past three years, making it the fourth most vulnerable community of all researched regions.

The Early Child Development (ECD) mapping project has been collecting information throughout the province since 2000, and in Port Alberni since 2002. The project is based out of Vancouver's University of B.C. (UBC), but is connected to all universities in B.C. In all, there are 300 affiliate universities involved in compiling and storing the collected data.

The project is provincially funded by the Ministry of Children and Family Development.

The goal of the mapping project is to understand early development in neighbourhoods across the province at the level of population, and to empower communities to use the results to mobilize groups according to need.

"Results must be considered within the context of changing socio- economic conditions within the community," Make Children First Network co-ordinator Tracy Smyth said.

"With these studies, we are hoping to decrease disparity in children's development in the early years," said Human Early Learning Partnership community liaison co-ordinator Joanne Schroeder. Schroeder was in town Wednesday to present recently amalgamated data to School District 70 representatives....

The information is collected via an early development instrument (EDI), which is like an in-depth report card that kindergarten teachers complete for every student in the district.

The extended report cards are completed by teachers in February of a given research year, then compiled with the information from the previous year. Schroeder believes that two years of data are necessary to make the results substantial.

The maps measure child development in five specific areas: physical health/well-being, social competence, emotional maturity, language/ cognitive development and communication skills/general knowledge. If an area has an overall low percentage result in one of the five areas, it is considered "vulnerable."

District wide, 25.4 per cent of kids were vulnerable in at least one domain of their development in first-round data. In change data, 30.1 per cent were vulnerable, showing an overall increase in vulnerability of 4.7 per cent.

"The results do indicate some disparity or difference between neighbourhoods - often this disparity increases with increasing urbanization," Smyth said of Port Alberni's change data results.

"Questions of affordable housing, transportation and equal access to services should be considered because the challenge now is to establish a community where every neighbourhood is child friendly."