As a check-up to measure the vitality of communities and significant trends related to quality of life, the Comox Valley Community Foundation is undertaking its second Vital Signs report.
The survey, which is available online, is an opportunity for the community to know what is important when it comes to evaluating the Comox Valley as a place to live, learn, work and grow.
The inaugural version of the survey, conducted in 2016, received more than 1,000 responses from Valley residents. Jody Macdonald, executive director of CVCF, says this year’s goal not only reaches that number of responses but doubles them.
Additionally, she notes, CVCF would like to see more youth participation and is using community agencies, social media and local non-profits to help reach that demography.
The report gathers and publishes data in an accessible format on significant social and economic trends. It aims to promote awareness of community issues, and can generate discussion, drive policy change and focus community leadership activities in the Valley.
As for changes from the previous survey, Macdonald says they did a review and examined some of the questions, particularly around health.
“We looked at the community health network forums and looked at their data. We want to reach out to the broader community to get all voices.”
For the 2018 report, CVCF has hired a community engagement and project manager on contract, with the goal of having a more successful update.
The organization will be collecting data through various channels and will end data collection by May 15, with a publication date of the 2018 report by early October, consistent with the launch of other vital signs reports from other community foundations across Canada.
The survey is open to all residents of the Comox Valley, and is available online at http://www.surveymonkey.com/r/2018VitalSigns