Building a Child Impact Assessment Tool for the City of Edmonton

Abstract

Children, Youth and Environments 15(2), 2005 Building a Child Impact Assessment Tool for the City of Edmonton Bob Yates Yates, Thorn & Associates Victoria, British Columbia, Canada Citation: Yates, Bob. (2005). “Building a Child Impact Assessment Tool for the City of Edmonton.” Children, Youth and Environments 15(2): 371-377. . Comment on This Article Abstract Few Canadian cities have taken their commitments to children and young people more seriously than the City of Edmonton. The City has recognized that the local government agency in Edmonton must take the lead in promoting the implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. The firm of Yates, Thorn & Associates, a Victoria, British Columbia-based social planning consultancy, was hired by the City of Edmonton to help develop specific aspects of its Children’s Services Framework. This report describes the development of a Child Impact Assessment Tool. Keywords: Child-friendly cities, child impact assessment tool, Canada© 2005 Children, Youth and Environments Building a Child Impact Assessment Tool for the City of Edmonton 372 Background The demands on local governments in Canada and elsewhere to provide effective services for children and youth are increasing along many dimensions: • The expectations of parents and others regarding the range and quality of services are expanding. • More children are living in poverty now than at any time in the past. Their need for services is even greater than that of those children who have the ability to pay. • Federal and provincial governments are downloading services onto local governments, and providing funding for new services such as childcare. At the same time, they frequently adopt legal (such as the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC)) or promotional (such as Alberta’s Promise) frameworks which local governments are required to follow. • Multiple agencies are increasingly involved as partners in the delivery of services. This is positive, but also demanding of time and resources. • The value of all services is constantly being evaluated and in some cases questioned by a tax-conscious public. • Communities are focusing more on outputs than inputs. The question is no longer “how many hockey practices did you attend?” but rather “did you win the game?” or at the very least “how well did you play?” When all this is put together with the inherent vulnerability and lack of political power of children and youth, it requires local governments to include frameworks and processes in their policy making that consistently and continually prompt the question, “What will be the impact on children and youth?” The City of Edmonton recognized that this question must be addressed as part of the implementation of its Children's Services Framework. Consequently, the City of Edmonton Community Services Department requested Yates, Thorn & Associates1 to develop a Child Impact Assessment Tool: a “lens” through which the impact of programs, policies and initiatives on children and youth could be examined. Early discussion made it clear that the Child Impact Assessment process must be: • Practical - it must be simple to use, providing a set of functional tools for city administrators and elected officials. • Visible - it must act to reinforce the need for a broad range of services for children and youth. • Visionary - it must be far-sighted in its vision of services for children, with the goal of putting Edmonton at the leading edge of child-friendly cities. Building a Child Impact Assessment Tool for the City of Edmonton 373 To meet these objectives, it must be designed to: • Educate various groups about children’s services. These groups include internal department and city staff, councilors, external agency staff and volunteers, as well as the general public. • Advocate for a child-friendly Edmonton. This implies a more proactive approach focused not just on “means” but also on “ends.” • Integrate child-focused efforts into the business planning processes of the City. The Child Impact Assessment will only be effective in the long term if it is a part of the machinery of government. • Focus on the key issues of importance to the children and youth of Edmonton, which had been identified through consultation with children and adults during the development of the Children’s Services Framework. Moving Edmonton towards Being a “Child...