Background
The Toronto Report Card on Children is a social report that examines the well-being of the City's children and the families and communities in which they live. This report is for policy makers, practitioners, researchers, parents, families and individuals who are concerned with the state of Toronto's children.
The Report Card looks at child outcomes and the family & community factors that influence child outcomes. Well-being indicators will help us to understand the condition of Toronto's children and the environments in which they live. The results will allow us identify issues and trends and will allow us to target areas within the city that require attention.
This report attempts to demonstrate where inequities exist so that individuals, communities, organizations and governments can address these inequities and ultimately improve the lives of children.
- adapted from the Toronto Children's Charter.
Toronto is a dynamic city and its demographic, social and economic characteristics are constantly changing. For this reason, the report has moved from a printed document to a web based version that will be updated as new information becomes available.
Methodology
Through the use of demographics, well-being indicators and service indicators, this report attempts to describe the characteristics of children and families living in the city.
Demographic data
Unless otherwise noted, the Toronto Report Card on Children uses the most recent data from Statistics Canada, 2006 Census.
This report uses custom tables detailing economic and census family data specifically for City of Toronto families with children 0-14 years. This will differ from data gathered from standard Census 2006 tables that include all economic and census families with or without children.
The Census 2006 family income data describes family incomes earned in 2005. (and is compared against family incomes from the 1996 Census which describes family incomes earned in 1995.
It is important to note that while the Census is our main source for data regarding family incomes, there are limitations. Coverage errors (in particular, when dwellings or individuals are missed or incorrectly enumerated) can result in under-coverage in some areas. Non-response errors result when responses cannot be obtained from a sufficient number of households or individuals or their questionnaires are incomplete. This may result in the suppression of particular statistics for a defined geography. This suppression is the result of confidentiality rules that prohibit the release of any data that may be used to identify an individual response. This was the case for income data from a key census tract in downtown Toronto, which traditionally had very high proportions of low-income children. The response rates for this census tract were very low, causing the family income data to be suppressed and potentially underestimating the percentage of low-income children. In addition, when analyzing specific groups (i.e., lone-parent families) at too detailed a level, the data may also become suppressed.
For this reason, information is presented at the city-wide level and where available, at the ward level and/or the local census tract level.The results will allow us identify issues and trends and will allow us to target areas within the city that require attention.
Well-being Indicators
What makes an ideal childhood experience? Play, learning, good health, safety, feelings of being loved and valued, a sense of belonging and more. All of these are important but some are easily measured while others are not. While there are hundreds of indicators that can be used, this report focuses on a smaller set for which we have reliable data.
The data in the report card was provided from the contributing partners and it may vary in terms of the ages of children and the time period that is being reported. All sectors collect and maintain data for different age groups and in different ways. The data provided was always the most current and complete that was available.
