All That Kids Can Be

To reach their potential, children and youth need to live, learn and grow in a stable, caring environment. By supporting and engaging young people, the community benefits now and in the future.

What Do We Know?

Despite a wide range of services for children and youth in Waterloo Region, there are still gaps.  There are inequalities across neighbourhoods in the number of children vulnerable to experiencing developmental difficulties and differences in the availability of community resources, especially for children with special needs, new immigrant and refugee children, and First Nations children.

There are certain pockets or categories of youth not doing well in school, in particular, youth from specific geographic areas in the region and homeless youth.

The Statistics 

We have a lot of information about child and youth health in KW. There is some suggestion that there may be pockets of youth that are falling behind. We know that 12.6% of children aged 0-14 in Waterloo Region were living in poverty in 2006.[1]  We also know that there has been an increase in substantiated child welfare issues over the last 4 years, and that youth in the region use some kinds of illegal drugs at rates above the provincial average.

United Way’s Role

While several other funders, agencies, and community initiatives are focused on children and youth, United Way KW is currently filling a gap in many areas related to at-risk and hard to serve children and youth.

We define children and youth as 0 to 25 years of age.

United Way KW strives to make change in this Focus Area by working within the following three collective outcomes:

• Increased sense of belonging and engagement
• Increased physical health and heathy behaviour
• Improved emotional wellbeing

Where Are We Investing?

To help kids be all that they can be, United Way KW invests in a variety of local programs and services.  To view a complete list, click here.

[1] For more information about these statistics, please contact grants@uwaykw.org for a copy of the Impact Strategy Analysis Reports