Report on Children
"Children in Hamilton: Progress and Challenges"
Full Report here
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This report provides the Hamilton community with a review of issues and recent progress made addressing the health and well being of children. An important reference point for the review is the Children’s Symposium for Hamilton held in January 2001. This report provides the community with an update on progress made in Hamilton since that time. The report is 
structured around the issues identified at the Symposium. The purpose of this review is to add support to the ongoing work of community planning and action to improve conditions encouraging the healthy development of children.
Information in this report was derived from several sources including recent literature on changes that have taken place, information gathered through structured conversations and meetings with local stakeholders, service providers and program planners. Discussions focussed on any information that would describe program, policy or social trend changes in community that have been taken or observed.
The changes described are reported according to key themes identified by participants at the Symposium held in 2001. This format builds on the Symposium process and uses it to provide some measure of change along dimensions that were identified as important to community members of Hamilton. Those themes are:
- improve information on programs and services to facilitate better access and coordination of services
- increase participation of private sector and other community members, educate them
- create a broad community strategy to address children’s health and well being
- respond to the cultural diversity of the community and create culturally welcoming initiatives
- make services universally available and accessible recognizing that poverty is still a barrier to access.
- invest in training, support and mentoring to increase use of best practices knowledge
- build a map of services, population characteristics and other information which will help to inform and influence the action we take to improve healthy development
- evaluate our progress
This report notes several recommendations that will contribute to further advancements in important areas that will contribute to the healthy development of children in Hamilton. Those recommendations are:
Formulate a community plan that includes a strategy for addressing the adequate income needs of all families.
Provide programs and services with stable and reliable funding when there is clear evidence that the services they provide have a positive impact on the healthy development of children.
Community and corporate sector involvement in addressing the needs of children is seen as having some potential for growth. Develop and test new strategies that better identify ways in which community participation can be strengthened.
Provide better supports to parents through improved parental leave and flexible work arrangements in the workplace. Pilot projects should be developed and tested with local employers to modify workplace practices in a way that assists parents.
Knowledge transfer and training on best practices is important to community service providers and practitioners. A clear plan for increasing the professional development opportunities and supports to service providers is needed to benefit services and ultimately children.
Make services more accessible and responsive to the needs of the culturally diverse community. Better systems and supports need to be developed for use in services which will enable them to serve equally well all members of our increasingly diverse community.
As the service system for children changes and expands, governments, service providers and families must build on effective programs that exist and have proven value to children in the community rather than substitute or simply replace existing systems and services.
Hamilton must create a city-wide, collaborative strategy with a core set of indicators for monitoring and reporting on the progress that we are making to create improvement in the conditions necessary for the healthy development of children. That report should provide information on children and their conditions of well being from birth to the transition to adulthood.
The process of implementing a community strategy to improve the health and well being of children requires a dedicated team of professionals and community members working together. The City of Hamilton should establish a community based advisory committee to guide this effort. A community advisory committee could pursue the social vision and articulate a plan that advises on policy and the allocation of resources to initiatives directed at benefiting children in Hamilton.
The report concludes that Hamilton has the capacity and the resources to provide a supportive environment for children through high quality education, health, social and recreational services and will be able to create better services, systems and communities through cooperation and effective action to produce better outcomes for children.