Connections First

THE OPPORTUNITY OF NATURAL SUPPORTS TO PROMOTE WELL-BEING AND RESILIENCY IN ALBERTA

It’s hard to reduce the work of two years of research, discussions, thinking and data crunching into a four page document, but that’s what we’ve tried to do with this document.

We know that trying to understand something, like natural supports, that are seemingly so obvious, and yet so difficult to really get a grasp on is tough. We’ve done a lot of work to try and align our work with the work of the province of Alberta, other provinces and jurisdictions, and other countries.

Executive Summary

Our Executive Summary is our effort to streamline our work into a single, easily digestible document. It presents contemporary evidence about the value of investments at the community level to mitigate the influence of adversity on children age 6-16. We have aligned it with the work done, and being done, by the Government of Alberta and Not-for-Profit sector partners. We thank all of them for their input and work.

INFOGRAPHIC

We think an infographic is a great way to introduce the “why” and “what” of our project. The intent of our infographic is that it be used as a quick means of assimilating some of the evidence and data we have collected over the past couple years and essentially set the context and build the case for why change is needed. It’s also meant to be a quick reference of how children and families feel about their current situations, and provide some impetus for individuals and community members to address the gaps.

Please feel free to download and use any of our documents to start your own conversations and share with others!

Looking for More Information?

Our Call to Action resource is designed for those who are seeking information about Natural Supports, including material to inform strategic planning and evaluation, to help build the case for interventions. It’s designed purposefully to contain both data driven evidence and narrative case studies that hopefully bring the “call to action” more to life. The Call to Action provides information about the potential of natural supports and supportive environments to foster child and youth development and to mitigate the influence of adversity on individual potential.

The intention of the Call to Action is to:

a) describe the context under which development is optimized;

b) provide current evidence about children, families and natural supports; and to

c) suggest some strategies to enhance natural supports and communities. 

Both the full length and brief versions of the Call to Action are available below to view and download.