By gathering data, the Regional Intersectoral Committee (RIC) of southeast Saskatchewan has gained some valuable insight into the health and well-being of a good portion of Saskatchewan's population.
That information will be useful in planning programs to suit the needs of the citizens in the future, said Janice Giroux, vice-president of community health for the Sun Country Health Region and co-chairwoman of the Southeast RIC. Giroux presented the Sun Country directors with a sampling of the data that had been accumulated to date during their Feb. 29 meeting that was held in Estevan.
The RIC membership involves six school divisions, two health regions (Sun Country and Sun Rise) which in turn embrace 50 communities that range in population from 300 to 20,000 plus 23 First Nation communities. The southeast RIC covers a total population of 160,000 spread out over 125,000 square kilometres.
The geographical boundaries, she said, include an area north of Sturgis, east to the Manitoba border and south to the U.S. border. The western border intersects with the Regina RIC that includes just a small region outside that city's boundaries and an area well beyond that to the north and south.
The programs that will roll out as a result of the survey will be driven by asset co-ordinators who will serve as liaison people for the communities involved.
"It's time now to take it to the next level. We have 27 communities marked to do development work that will involve the communities themselves and each community will be expected to earmark their specific projects. There is a bit of funding available for them to get them started," Giroux said.
"That means the asset co-ordinator will get into the community, and get back to us. It could be a public health project, it could be a project involving educational needs, something that requires Social Services assistance ... they (Education and Social Services Ministries) are partners in this. They have full plates too, but they're willing partners," Giroux added.
Various provincial ministries have been involved in the funding of the fact-finding mission and the ensuing programs, seeing the investment efficiencies involved in bringing strong social, health and educational programming into a community that goes beyond their traditional levels.
"We don't want to tell them what to take on. We'll certainly have a list of ideas that each of these communities can draw on if they need help to get started, but in no way are we going to tell them what we think they should do. We have some seed funding to help them get underway and we'll have resource people, facilitators available to help them, but each project will be community driven," Giroux added.
During the information portion of the presentation, Giroux pointed out that of the 50 communities included in the survey, Estevan stood well ahead of the regional and provincial average when it came to a population between the ages of 15 and 64 who had certificates, diplomas or degrees. The survey indicated that just under 14 per cent of the Energy City's population were without some type of educational certification of note compared with 37.5 per cent for the entire southeast RIC and 25.4 per cent of the provincial population. The best educated population base, in terms of this survey, was found in Redvers where just 10.8 per cent were without some type of educational certification. The least educated population in the southeast RIC was found in Balcarres and Punnichy where 38 per cent of the population carried no official education certification beyond elementary.
When it came to teen births, Estevan was again on the low-end, or positive side of the survey, with 8.8 per cent of the mothers aged 19 and under giving birth, based on data that was made available from 2008. Radville, on the other hand, indicated no teenaged mothers. Weyburn's rate was just 3.3 per cent while Balcarres and Punnichy were again at the high end with 42.4 and 32.4 per cent respectively.
Saskatchewan's incidence of teen mother birthrates was 10 per cent in 2008, about the same as the southeast RIC's birth rate for teen moms.
Single parenting was a slightly different story though, with Estevan's population pretty well being in the middle of the pack with 21.6 per cent of the family population headed up by a single parent compared with 22.7 per cent for the entire southeast and 28.4 across the province based on Canadian census information. Balcarres and Broadview were the two communities with the highest rates of single parent households at 52.6 and 50 per cent ,respectively. The lowest single parent rate was as expected, Radville at zero followed by Carnduff and Lampman at just 11.1 and 11.8, respectively.
Giroux said that 1,815 children were assessed for school readiness as part of the survey with one in five of those being Aboriginal. The study also indicated that children's most sensitive early brain development years were between birth and three years of age when language development was the strongest with a steady decline in language development rates after the age of four. The measurements were also taken for vision, auditory systems, habitual responses, emotional control and peer social skill developments among others.
In-hospital birth questionnaires gave the southeast RIC - the largest one in Saskatchewan based on the combination of population and geographic territory - a good indicator of family vulnerabilities plus risks of financial and community supports and programs.
"One in four children is vulnerable in at least one domain," said Giroux "and half of these are vulnerable in two or more. The highest vulnerability is physical health and well-being then language and cognitive development."
In some instances there was no clear co-relation to higher social risk and higher vulnerability.
Giroux said the challenge the local RIC faces at this stage is the fact they have to facilitate some varying demographics throughout the region, as pointed out in the data gathering process, and some of the anomalies that were found within them.
"Another challenge is the vast geographic area we have. In fact we lost our first asset co-ordinator simply because the coverage area was so huge," said Giroux.
Another challenge will be in getting First Nations and Social Services more fully involved, she said.
With asset co-ordinators moving into the school divisions, they will be able to continue developmental work and they will host presentations in communities to provide data information, the health co-ordinator said. They will also conduct local focus groups to engage the community members and draft the local action plans and Giroux said she expected that the RIC work will continue to provide dividends as towns and cities in the southeast develop more programs that will target certain elements they would like to improve on as they grow.
