Mélissa LJI Reporter

At the meeting of Gatineau’s Healthy City Commission on November 1, Étienne Soutière, Early Childhood Planning, Programming and Research Officer, presented the results of the Quebec survey on child development in kindergarten (EQDEM).

This survey has been conducted every five years since 2012 and is supported by the Ministry of Health, Education and Family as well as the Lucie and André Chagnon Foundation. More specifically, the EQDEM is based on five major areas of development, including: physical health, well-being, communication skills, general knowledge and emotional maturity. There are also subheadings.

“Once again, the Outaouais is a little high in terms of statistics,” stated Soutière. “We have proportions of 32.2% in terms of vulnerable children who are in school in the Outaouais. There has, however, been some improvement since the last survey […].”

“It is in terms of physical health, well-being, communication skills and general knowledge that we find the greatest proportion of vulnerable children,” he explained.

In the city of Gatineau, it was possible to note that the CLSC Vallée-de-la-Lièvre in the Buckingham sector has the largest proportion of vulnerable children. “In total, Gatineau has a rate of 34% of vulnerable children compared to 31.6% in Aylmer and 31% in the Hull sector,” Soutière pointed out. In the more remote regions of Quebec, such as Gaspésie and the Magdalen Islands, there is a rate of 24% of children in vulnerable situations.

Among the statistics, 32% of these children were born in Quebec, 34% in Canada and 43% outside the country. “It was possible to observe that a proportion of English-speaking children are five to eight per cent more vulnerable than elsewhere,” noted Soutière. “So, there are questions to ask at that level.”

The proportion of children who benefited from an educational childcare service represents a 30% vulnerability rate, compared to 51% for those who did not benefit from this service. “We can see, however, that childcare services are a fairly interesting safety net for toddlers,” he added.

To implement actions, the EQDEM set up a steering committee in the winter of 2023. “Our goal was to collect all the desired outcomes and the right costs, in order to bring them together to become a lever for strategic and action planning,” he emphasized. These outcomes include, in particular: more affordable housing, a better active transportation service, free play, socialization, the promotion of volunteering and much more.

Meetings, conferences, activities, mobilization and awareness-raising are part of the actions put in place to continue to support and help the situation.

Student walking with her backpack. MG Photo : Pixabay