Vital Signs making impact on Sunshine Coast

The Sunshine Coast Community Foundation published its first Vital Signs report in 2009.

It was a major accomplishment for our foundation, which became a registered charity and a member of Community Foundations of Canada in 2003. We are a completely volunteer organization, with a 12-person board of directors and 25 additional volunteers. We are one of the smallest community foundations to undertake a Vital Signs report.

The report confirmed that the number of area youth who were unemployed or receiving income assistance was higher than the provincial averages.

At the Foundation’s strategic planning session in January, we decided to convene a gathering of community stakeholders to address this critical issue on the Sunshine Coast, a linear community stretching approximately 85 kilometres along the coast of British Columbia, just northwest of Vancouver. The area’s population is about 28,000, concentrated in Gibsons, Sechelt and Pender Harbour.

While historically a primary resource industry area, recent years have brought a sharp decline in forestry and fishing. The Sunshine Coast has become a popular retirement community, as well as a tourist destination, due to the lure of the nearby mountains and ocean.

This has brought challenges to young adults living in the area, including high housing costs, lack of good paying jobs related to the decline of primary industries, and lack of social amenities due to the small population.

In response, the community foundation created a one-day workshop called Attracting, Retaining and Employing Young Adults, in consultation with the community and with funding from several sources including our three local governments.

More than 50 people attended, including a representation of young working adults, employers, elected officials and senior staff from local government, trades program representatives from the local school district, university, training agencies and our employment agency.

At the end of the day, a task force was identified to take the project further. It includes two working groups: one to take the ideas identified at the workshop and create a draft strategic plan with long- and short-term solutions to this issue and the second working group to propose a partnership/organizational structure to move the strategic plan forward.

The task force was asked to report back to the workshop attendees with their proposed strategies and structure in a one-day event planned for later this fall.

Enthusiasm for this initiative is high in the community and there has been positive media attention.

The Foundation is delighted that Vital Signs has enjoyed success in our community by bringing this and other issues forward. We feel that the 2009 Report has a shelf life of two years or more, which is why we will once again embark on Vital Signs in 2011.

That said, a Vital Signs management team is now working in consultation with the community on a two-page update report that we will publish as a centrefold in our local newspaper on Oct. 8 and on the Vital Signs page of our website.

Don Basham is Board Secretary and Vital Signs Manager for Sunshine Coast Community Foundation

National program to match students with pressing community needs

(Sept. 7, 2010) As kids head back to school, the Canadian Teachers' Federation (CTF) and Community Foundations of Canada are announcing a new partnership to help students across the country take action to make a positive difference in their communities.

Imagineaction is a student-driven social action program developed by the Canadian Teachers' Federation for public school students in Grades K-12. The program creates opportunities for school-community social action projects and will use Vital Signs, a quality of life report produced by community foundations, as a guide to the key issues facing Canadian communities.

"Imagineaction is a terrific way for teachers to help their students connect, in a very productive way, with the world outside their school doors," said Monica Patten, President and CEO of Community Foundations of Canada. "We can't wait to bring the issues raised in Vital Signs into classrooms across the country."

Vital Signs is an annual check-up conducted by community foundations across Canada that measures the vitality of our communities, identifies trends, and shares opportunities for action in areas critical to quality of life. The 2010 Vital Signs reports will be released on Tuesday, October 5.

"Teachers will use the valuable data contained in Vital Signs to link students to emerging community needs and to community foundations who work with a myriad of local partners on addressing those needs.
Participating students will benefit from the expertise of community organizations and will see how their own outreach can benefit the neighbourhoods in which they live," said CTF President Mary-Lou Donnelly.

Imagineaction will connect teachers and students with local experts online, with the Canadian Teachers' Federation serving as information broker. Experts in various community issues - from housing to environment to employment - will register online. Once approved, they can be contacted by teachers to assist with projects related to their respective fields.

Imagineaction will also offer subsidies to teachers to support resulting projects, related professional development, and an electronic showcase designed to promote and share the great work being done in schools across Canada.

The Canadian Teachers' Federation
The Canadian Teachers' Federation (CTF) is a national alliance of provincial and territorial organizations that represent nearly 200,000 elementary and secondary school teachers across Canada. For more information about Imagineaction, go to www.imagine-action.caand www.ctf-fce.ca.

Community Foundations of Canada
Community Foundations of Canada is the national membership association for the more than 170 community foundation across the country. Community foundations are local charitable foundations that help Canadians invest in building strong and resilient places to live, work, and play. They are one of the largest supporters of Canadian charities, providing $140 million to local organizations in 2009. Find out more at www.cfc-fcc.ca.

Teachers use Vital Signs to connect classrooms with communities

This fall, the Canadian Teachers Federation (CTF) will be launching a project called Imagineaction that supports student-driven social action movements.

As part of this project, CTF will be producing teacher resources for all grade levels that provide ideas for using Vital Signs reports from Community Foundations of Canada to determine a starting point for social action projects.

Vital Signs reports are useful starting points for social action projects. They encourage educators to think about our communities in relation to national findings. These reports present facts regarding 10 key issues: work, gap between rich and poor, getting started, health, learning, housing, belonging and leadership, safety, environment, and arts and culture.

Teachers can identify which of the 10 key issues are most relevant to their curriculum or, alternatively, teachers can use all 10 key issues to help students explore their own community.

What I like about CTF’s resource is that it acknowledges that social action projects are most successful when students are highly involved in making decisions about the project, including the initial scope and direction.

It has been my experience that students are deeply interested in their communities, as well as other communities in Canada. Last year, my Grade 12 students in rural Nova Scotia explored issues in our local community and then visited a contrasting community in northern Alberta.

They published a book called 21st Century Communities: A Youth Inquiry Project and produced a documentary called Questions to Learn: A Youth Inquiry Project. This project was initiated by my students and was a response to their desire to think about their roles in current and future communities.  I am excited to bring additional resources about communities to my classroom, knowing how information about our communities, such as Vital Signs reports, might be used in classrooms and to help young people think about social action.

Social action can take different forms in our schools. It might be as focused as an awareness activity with a small group of students in one class, to as broad as an extra-curricular club that accomplishes year-long projects. It is important to note that one social-action activity can lead to another, that it can foster projects that include a wider community involvement, or that it can produce multiple initiatives to support a community.

Regardless of the scope of the initial interest, CTF’s Imagineaction resource will offer ideas to help teachers and students use Vital Signs reports to determine a starting point for social action.

Steven Van Zoost, PhD, teaches at Avon View High School in Windsor, Nova Scotia. Find out more at www.stevenvanzoost.com