The Boys and Girls Club of Olds will conduct a survey in the fall, measuring the responses of local young people to the question, “What makes you feel confident?”
More than 3,000 youth across the country aged eight to 24 have already answered the survey and 600 of the national responses came from Boys and Girls Club members.
In Olds, the local Boys and Girls Club will be contacting Grade 8 students at Deer Meadow School, among other groups of children throughout the community, to find out what the response is locally.
“We hope to get some good feedback and we're hoping to get a hard copy of the survey so then we can survey some of our community as well, and just see how some of the results compare to what was done on a national level,” said Mindy Grover, executive director of the Olds club.
In addition to comparing local results to national ones, the local club wants to gather more general feedback to see how Olds' young people feel.
In the national survey, 42 per cent of Canadian youth aged eight and up said being loved builds their confidence, while 37 per cent of youth aged eight to 12 said that being good at something is important in feeling good about themselves.
A further 34 per cent of teenagers aged 13 to 17 said confidence rises when they are doing well in school. And 30 per cent of youth aged 18 to 24 said that being recognized for something they did well makes them more confident.
The national survey was carried out, Grover said, to measure how youth feel about the job the Boys and Girls Clubs of Canada are doing in helping young people succeed.
“There are a lot of surveys out there already, but what makes this survey unique is that it is the first to gather voices of young people aged eight to 12 years old,” Grover said, noting that it was also the first survey in which young people had a hand in developing the question. An advisory panel of youth aged 12 to 24 from across Canada helped develop the confidence question.
Results from the survey will be used to develop and further refine programs and services that Boys and Girls clubs across Canada will offer to youth. In Olds, the club provides the Torch program to youth in grades 4 to 8 while it also provides the Keystone program to students in grades 9 to 11. The programs focus on leadership development, lifelong learning, healthy development, mental health and developing positive relationships.
There are currently 122 members in the Olds club, from infants through to age 18.
