Social Planning

Learn how social planning's playing an important role in creating a healthy, vibrant and socially sustainable community.

Social Planning is about building a strong and healthy community.  Unlike other forms of town planning that focus on the physical or environmental characteristics of a town, social planning focuses on the people.

Social Planning plays a key role in facilitating collaborative approaches to complex social issues and cuts across many different community plans and strategies, like Parks and Recreation and Stewart Public Library.

We're currently focused on few issues:

1. Children and Youth
2. Child Poverty Reduction Pilot Project
3. Healthy Community

Children and Youth

Our goal is to:

• Increase opportunities for children and youth to meaningfully engage in civic issues and contribute to the community.
• Create vibrant public spaces that promote social connections and play.
• Increase young people's interaction with access to nature.

Council focuses and program areas:

1. Engagement – Providing opportunities for children and youth to participate in and contribute to civic life.
2. Physical Environment – A natural and built environment that supports the healthy development of children and youth.
3. Civic Services – Recreation, library and cultural services that are framed around the developmental needs of children and youth.

Child Poverty Reduction Pilot Project

The Ministry of Children and Family Development appointed seven community poverty strategy consultants to forge partnerships with local governments, community organizations and local businesses. The consultants will co-ordinate and lead community teams in developing action plans that address the needs of families living in poverty. The strategies will optimize existing resources and will initially focus on families with children living in poverty. They will be guided by feedback from town hall meetings, community discussions and conversations with low-income families and individuals vulnerable to poverty. Key to developing successful strategies is recognition that each community has distinctive needs and resources.

Healthy Community

The District of Stewart is participated in a Healthy Community Development project.

Healthy Community Development is a small program within the Population Health Department at Northern Heath.

Healthy Community Development is based on the idea that if we can help people stay healthy and out of the health care system it will it save tax payer dollars in a time when money is tight but the health needs and age of our populations are increasing. This will contribute to a more sustainable health care system.  More important than the dollars we could save, though, are the “other” costs associated with ill-health.  People who are sick lose a lot – mobility, independence, income, self-esteem and quality and quantity of life.  Their family and friends worry about them and miss having them actively participating in life's activities and events. The spirit and soul of our families and communities are diminished.

In the North, with our smaller and scattered communities, these social costs have an even greater impact because we are all so closely connected to each other. The early and avoidable death of a valued community member will impact the whole community, because everybody knows each other. We have a connectedness to one another that heightens grief and loss. Because we have smaller populations, the loss of one community member can be the loss of a valuable library of memories, skills and history.

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