Understanding the Early Years - Community Impacts on Child Development - August 1999

6. Outline for the Community Mapping Study

The Community Mapping Study undertaken in North York as a pilot study is one component of a package of initiatives designed to assist communities in assessing community resources available to families with children in order to improve children's readiness to learn. The data collected will be used to provide the community with research results regarding the contribution that their resources and services are making to the healthy development of their children. The outline for the Community Mapping Study sets out the following: type of data collected, some potential data sources, the main issues for measurement, and project outputs.

6.1 Objectives

The four main objectives of the Community Mapping Study are to:

Show the distribution of programs and services available to families with children within the city of North York;
Show the intensity of coverage and use of resources and services (i.e., how resources are clustered within certain areas, and which areas have resources that are used most often);
Show the mix or range of services and describe their characteristics; and
Assess the physical characteristics of the neighbourhoods in which the children grow.

This will be accomplished through the production of a series of detailed maps identifying the availability of resources within defined areas from which children are sampled as well as a report synthesizing findings. Communities can use both products to make decisions regarding child-oriented services that are cost-effective.

The intent of this project is to complement each community's own efforts to assess its services and characteristics that support child development, to collaborate as much as possible on data collection, and to reach data sharing agreements. Since many communities across the country will be conducting the Community Mapping Study it is important to have one standard instrument, to permit sharing of information between communities and comparisons to a national average. The research results will be used to inform decisions taken at the community, provincial, and federal levels.

6.2 Research Questions

The pairing of the NLSCY and the Community Mapping Study will allow the examination of the complex relationships between the presence and use of community resources and child outcomes. Specific research questions for the Community Mapping Study have been developed in order to analyse how the diversity, intensity, and distribution of resources can impact child development. The questions are as follows:

1. What are the relationships between specific types of programs or services and child development outcomes?
2. What combination or mix of programs can have a positive impact on outcomes?
3. Do the lack of programs or services in a child's residential environment impact on his/her outcomes?

6.3 Data to Be Collected

A more complete picture of the role of communities in child development and the research questions are outlined in the Framework for Research and Data Collection (Chapter 4). The framework identified five aspects of the child's community that may impact child development: 1) the physical and infrastructure environment (presence of parks, conditions of buildings), 2) the characteristics of the community (education, income, safety), 3) the presence and use of community resources, 4) residents working as a collectivity, and 5) residents working for the common good.

In order to assess the impact of these five aspects of the community on child development, data should be collected on:

1. availability of community services - location (including full addresses and phone numbers of community organisations and facilities);
2. descriptive information about community-based programs and services;
3. statistics on various social and economic characteristics (e.g., crime, safety); and
4. neighbourhood characteristics - observations of specified neighbourhood characteristics for each neighbourhood in North York.

Data on these factors will be collected through the NLSCY and the Community Mapping Study. Table 1 shows how questions on these topics will be distributed between the NLSCY and the Community Mapping Study.

The range of services available within the community, will be sorted into six categories (educational, health and wellness, sports and recreation, entertainment and culture, special interest, and societal). Each category contains a broad range of resources available to parents and young children. Through the Community Mapping Study, data will be collected on all available programs and services in each of these categories and could include for example, information on the availability, location, and population served by the service or program where available.

6.4 Methods of Data Collection for the Community Mapping Study

To develop information on resource availability, an inventory of resources will be developed and presented by a series of detailed maps to show the distribution, intensity, and range of programs or services offered within each enumeration area within the community.
The community program survey (see Appendix B) will be administered to community programs identified under each of the 6 resource categories. This study focuses on programs serving or targeting children aged 0-6 or their parents or guardians (including prenatal programs). The program or service should be provided directly to members of the target population (does not include advocacy or committee work) and may directly or indirectly support children's development. The programs must be ongoing and have been offered in the last 6 months. They may include services and support, screening or assessment, treatment or intervention, lessons, information, and counselling or assistance. Included for example are food banks, job support programs, help for family violence, literacy programs, nutrition programs, grassroots community programs, prenatal and perinatal programs. A program may be part of a larger organisation or stand on its own. It may take place at more than one site. Program managers (administrators) will be questioned in greater detail about their program's strengths and weaknesses, its costs, and the demand for the program from the community. An effort will be made to sample all programs targeting children aged 0-6 in the North York area, however, it is acknowledged that identifying and surveying programs is an on-going process and the inventory developed will in no way be exhaustive.
The statistics on the social and economic characteristics within communities will be obtained from the Census and other local and provincial databases (see Sources of Community Information below). General information such as the average income level, occupational class, population density and adult to child ratios, home ownership, and crime rates for the community would be useful in getting a better look at the wider socio-demographic environment in which children are being raised. Such information will be combined, where possible, with the distribution of resources.
Observations of neighbourhood characteristics (see Appendix C) will be conducted by assessing randomly selected blocks within each Enumeration Area in the city¹ according to a specified set of criteria for each characteristic. This would include characteristics such as the volume of traffic, the presence of litter or graffiti, and the neighbourhood's lighting conditions.

6.5 Analyses and Products

The information will be compiled in both maps and reports.

6.5.1 Large scale maps

Community Resources

Each map that will be created to show the distribution of community resources will first display the density of children within the area served by a school according to age (i.e., 6 and under). Separate maps can then be plotted to show the distribution of resources for each of the 6 resource categories (e.g., education, sports and recreation, health and wellness, entertainment and culture, special interest, and societal). The "societal" and "special interest" categories could be plotted together on the same map, because only small numbers of resources exist in these two groups. The specific programs and services that exist within each category (e.g., doctors, dentists, and health clinics under the health and wellness heading) could be plotted with different colour schemes to distinguish among the various subtypes. Simple data analysis can then be conducted to determine the numbers of children in relation to the numbers of service providers or facilities, and the attendance or usage rates of each.

It would also be useful to create additional resource maps on transparent paper, so that maps could be overlaid upon each other and concentrations of more than one type of resource could be examined at one time. Other factors to be mapped (e.g., crime rates, or neighbourhood income levels) could also be presented in this manner in order to complete the view of the community.

Community Program Survey

The NLSCY component of this study will measure individual and family resource use, while the Community Mapping component will focus on resource availability.

Communities do not generally collect the type of resource use data that this project requires. Data on the usage rates of specific programs and facilities are difficult to obtain. Agencies do sometimes compile usage information for their own needs, but it is often sporadically collected, with many gaps and differing degrees of reliability.

The Community Programs Survey will, therefore, attempt to get a general picture of supply and use. Qualitative (content analysis) and quantitative (descriptive statistics) techniques would be employed to analyze the data collected in the survey. Such information would be particularly useful from the community's perspective, as analysis would identify the services that have the greatest impact on child development, the demand for such services and the critical services that are being used infrequently or not at all. It would also permit a look into the supply and usage in neighbourhoods of different socio-economic status. Pairing this information with the NLSCY child outcome data, could not only isolate what is working, but also give some indication as to why services work the way they do. This information would be invaluable to communities as it could increase the ability to differentiate among patterns of usage, guide funding decisions and aid in prioritizing among competing programs and interventions.

Neighbourhood Characteristics

Much of the social and economic (Census) and physical (neighbourhood observation) characteristics of communities could be plotted on maps. Geographical areas could then be examined on the basis of their resource availability and child outcomes to ascertain the relationship between resources and outcomes for children and to determine characteristics associated with specific outcomes.

6.5.2 Reports

The majority of the data to be collected will also be presented in a research report, consisting of small-scale maps and outcome-based analysis that would profile the North York community (based on integration with the larger NLSCY) where applicable. Data analysis will depend on two factors: first, in consideration of results that are needed to answer the research questions (see Framework for Research on Community Influences on Child Development) and second, in order to meet the research needs of the community, in this case the North York Early Years Action Group (EYAG). Consultations with the EYAG will ensure that all relevant analyses are conducted.

As this is a prototype project, information collected will be also be used to develop and refine the set of instruments to be used in the expansion of UEY to other communities across the country. As research from UEY becomes available, communities will benefit from comparisons to national data and data sharing between communities.

6.6 Sources of Community Information in North York

Where existing information is available in the community, it will be used as the basis for further data collection or analysis.

The Metro Task Force on Services to Young Children and Families in the city of Toronto has recently undertaken a community mapping initiative entitled the Metro Report Card on Children. This project was designed to identify children living in high risk areas (as a result of poverty) and map these areas based on a broad range of social indicators (e.g., birth weight, availability of child care, presence of schools and other community resources). The city of North York was included in their analyses. In addition, the Healthy Babies, Healthy Children group of Metro Toronto has compiled an inventory of services available to parents with young children that can also be used as a starting point to identify the types of services that are available.

6.6.1 Sources specific to North York

Several possible data sources within the greater Toronto area could be helpful in the mapping process. Community Information Centres (CIC) exist throughout Ontario and provide information for community residents regarding the programs and services within their areas. The CIC of Metropolitan Toronto publishes a directory of community services in Metropolitan Toronto (also known as the Blue Book) and houses an electronic database of over 3800 community services and programs within the area. As North York has recently amalgamated with the larger Toronto region, information regarding resources within North York are available on this directory.

In addition, the North York library runs a community information service known as the LINK Community Information & Referral Service. This service provides information about and referrals to community organisations and agencies (such as child care, education, employment, recreation, housing and volunteering) in and around the area. Data collected by the Metro Task Force and the Healthy Babies Healthy Children inventory will also be a valuable source of information. On-going consultations with members of the community will continue to reveal additional sources of information.

6.6.2 Additional sources and contacts for the Community Mapping Study

A variety of sources could be used to collect information for UEY Community project. They include, but are not limited to the following:

Community Services Departments
Police Departments and the R.C.M.P.
Departments of Education - public and separate school boards
Public Health Departments
Municipal Housing Authorities
Ministries of Community and Social Services
Ministries of Health
Statistics Canada
United Ways
Community projects (e.g., needs assessments, service directories)
Canadian Census
Children's Services
Vital Registries
Regional, National Libraries
Non-Governmental Organisations
Justice Departments
Parks and Recreation Departments
Volunteer Information Services

¹ Except EA's with no children aged 0-6 or those with populations of under 40 residents.

Contents