Understanding the Early Years - Early Childhood Development in North York - May 2001

7. Looking Forward

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Overall, the children of North York were healthy and most showed strong signs of positive development and readiness for learning. Parents were operating with self-reported good levels of social support, strong parenting skills, good family functioning and low levels of depression. Neighbourhoods were safe and clean and, in general, had accessible services.

Although many Canadian communities likely share at least some of these broader characteristics, each community also exhibits a variety of more unique features that set it apart from all others. This is one of the reasons community-based research is so important. Research allows a community to understand how its youngest citizens are developing and lends insight into how the obtained results came about. Investments for families and children as well as for children's development can be monitored over time so that effectiveness and efficiency of community effort can be improved.

What makes North York unique?

Four features stand out

Cultural diversity

North York is a highly multicultural community, with many families whose members have no working knowledge of English or French. In some cases, these characteristics were associated with higher behavioural and learning development in the children. In others, however, they were associated with lower vocabulary scores.

In the teacher checklist (EDI), between a fifth and one quarter of children had problems in at least one of the components and close to one third showed problems in two or more which for these children could translate into difficulties when learning. This is an important issue for the community to be aware of as readiness for learning and for school sets the basis for lifelong learning and future health and competence. Readiness to learn at this age can give a child the ability to "benefit from all that school has to offer, both academically and socially, which allows them to develop self-respect and self-esteem to tackle the challenges of learning and growing up."¹²

Socio-economic composition

The social and economic make-up of the community is also distinct. The average income levels in the sample of families that took part in the survey was slightly lower than the Canadian averages; the proportion of lone-parent families is higher; there is polarity in education levels of residents; and the mobility rate is also high. In most cases (at least for the outcomes examined in this report), these factors were not directly related to poorer children's outcomes. However, the potential stresses and potential lack of opportunity known to be associated with these characteristics could have implications for these children.

Conversely, the reverse of these characteristics (e.g., higher levels of education of residents and higher income levels) are related to positive child outcomes. In North York, for instance, higher levels of maternal education were associated with higher receptive vocabulary scores in children of those mothers with higher education.

There was also a great deal of social and economic diversity in individual neighbourhoods within the larger community, with higher and lower socio-economic areas tending to cluster together. Because neighbourhoods of different socio-economic resources have different needs and different requirements for child-based services, having information on individual neighbourhoods is crucial as it provides the information to allow services/programs to be customized on a neighbourhood by neighbourhood basis. It gives communities insight into areas with multiple problems or multiple strengths.

Parenting

Parenting styles in North York were similar to those in the rest of the country. It is important to recognize parenting style as a determinant of children's outcomes, which could feasibly be addressed in community-based interventions. In North York, more rational and positive parenting approaches were associated with enhanced behavioural development in the children. Research, based on the national sample of the NLSCY, has demonstrated the importance of positive, consistent, rational and effective parenting practices, both as a determinant of a child's healthy development as well as a strong protective factor against potential risks in a child's life. Increased awareness of the importance of good parenting and strategies and methods for improving parent-child interactions could form the basis of a community-based effort to enhance child development. In some communities, schools play an important role in providing information. This is already happening in many neighbourhoods in North York.

Resource utilization

Although many children used recreational facilities such as parks and play spaces and educational services such as libraries, their participation rates were somewhat lower than those in the rest of the province or country in other activities. The rates of children "almost never" participating in organized and unorganized sports and recreational activities were higher than the rest of the country in almost all activities. Participation was also associated with the social and cultural make-up of the community with, for instance, more children in two-parent families, higher household incomes, and English as their first language using resources than those who did not share these characteristics.

Participation in activities and use of child-oriented resources is important to a child's social, behavioural and physical development. Children's participation in supervised and unsupervised sports and arts-oriented activities is associated with increased psychosocial development.¹³ This emphasizes the importance of addressing existing barriers to resource use such as time, cost and the distribution of certain resources. Because children and their families were not using existing resources to their full potential, their importance for development could be promoted and their presence in the community advertized.

Summing up

North York is the prototype site for the UEY Initiative. As the initiative expands to more communities throughout the country, valuable lessons will be learned about the needs and strengths of communities with different economic, social and physical characteristics, and how they are working to improve children's outcomes as well as the relative success of their efforts (both in terms of more successful and less successful projects).

How citizens in communities work together to improve children's developmental outcomes will be determined by communities. Results from the UEY Initiative will inform the discussion along with the knowledge that comes from living in a community. At the same time, it is a societal responsibility — that of governments, educators, community agencies, neighbourhoods and families — to make sure improvements take place for all children. Strategies that require the community to look at itself as a whole community, as well as neighbourhood by neighbourhood, will likely have more enduring effects. UEY is able to provide research results to support both. For example, neighbourhood by neighbourhood, families may undertake to improve their outdoor playspaces, and on a community level, concerned agencies and organizations could undertake to improve community-wide strategies to integrate disadvantaged groups. As communities document their efforts as well as their results, effective practices will be identified.

Any community response must take into account the unique features of the area. In North York, for example, interventions must be sensitive to its linguistic, cultural and socio-economic diversity. The importance of a co-ordinated approach involving families, teachers and all community members must be emphasized, as each has been shown to be important in enhancing a child's development. Governments, community institutions, schools and the voluntary sector in North York must continue to work together, as each can make a unique and important contribution. Support for families with children from the larger community network is critical.

The children of North York are fortunate because in this case a great deal of support for the early years has already been established, and the continued work of the EYAG and other members of the community will maintain this commitment. With decisions based on research evidence, effective practices can be developed and the North York community can continue to work towards achieving the goal of ensuring every child enters school ready to learn.

• ¹²Doherty, G. (1997). Zero to Six: The Basis for School Readiness. HRDC, Applied Research Branch Research paper R-97-8E.
• ¹³Offord, D.R., Lipman, E.L., and Duku, E.K. (1998). Sports, the Arts and Community Programs: Rates and Correlates of Participation. HRDC, Applied Research Branch Working paper W-98-18E.

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