The Charity Report

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Shop Intelligence Reports

Are the kids all right?

(July 14, 2020) We love our children. We’ll do anything for them, won’t we? Politicians constantly appeal to our natural sense of care for children, to demonstrate their good intentions, or to amplify the dangers from which they are uniquely qualified to shield us. “Won’t someone please think of the children,” is becoming a cynical catchphrase. And yet the United Nations says, “the true measure of a nation’s standing is how well it attends to its children—their health and safety, their material security, their education and socialization, and their sense of being loved, valued, and included in the families and societies to which they were born.” 

Children are our future- and they are also canaries in the coal mine, sensitive to struggle, the most vulnerable among us, and a key to understanding the future needs of the charitable sector.  

How are the 8 million children in Canada doing? It depends on which children. UNICEF has released The Canadian Index of Child and Youth Well-being 2019 Baseline Report, which looks at 125 indicators for child well-being in Canada. According to UNICEF, “Canada’s wealth has been steadily rising, but our overall level of child and youth well- being hasn’t budged in over a decade.”

One in five (20.8 per cent) 5 to 11 year olds gets 1.5 hours or more of daily play time 
Photo: Alaric Sim
More than one in four (27.4 per cent) have felt sad or hopeless for a long period 
Photo: Annie Spratt
More than one quarter experience fighting (28.3 per cent) and/or regular bullying (27.0 per cent) 
Photo: Annie Spratt
One third (34.2 per cent) of 11 to 15 year olds experience weekly symptoms of mental distress, including headaches, stomach aches and trouble sleeping, and one in ten (10.5 per cent) 12 to 17 year olds reports living with a mood and/or anxiety disorder
Photo: Gabriel Porras
One in four (23.3 per cent) goes to bed or school hungry because there is not enough food at home, at least some of the time
Photo: Kyle Nieber
More than one in four (27.0 per cent) start kindergarten with developmental challenges
Photo: Markus Spiske
One in four (24.6 per cent) has experienced violence at home before the age of 15 
Photo: Nandhu Kumar-Brown 
Less than half (46.9 per cent) feel positive about school; and one in four (26.8 per cent) says they have more school work than they can handle 
Photo: Santi Vedri
One in ten homes with children (11.1 per cent) was informed of a boil-water advisory in the most recent year for available data 
Photo: Tolga Ahmetler
Only half of girls, 49,9 per cent, reported a high level of satisfaction with their lives, compared to about 60.3 per cent of boys
Photo: Zach Lucero

Feature Photo

In many cities, the air they breathe is polluted- just below the safe limit for fine particulate pollution. Children in poverty are more likely to suffer health consequences.
Photo: Frank Mckenna