United Way Perth-Huron Social Research & Planning Council Releases First Three Chapters of Quality of Life Report

by Bob Montgomery

Social Research and Planning Director Kristin Crane says this is the fourth time the Social Research and Planning Council has issued a Quality of Life report but she says this time they've expanded the types of data they looked at and in doing so created a much bigger framework for this Quality of Life project. Crane says this project consists of five separate reports rather than one. She says they're releasing three of the reports this week and they'll release the other two in December.

Crane says the report released this week includes a section called Who We Are and it talks about demographic and population trends in Huron and Perth counties. Another report talks about aspects of diversity in our communities and that could be religious, cultural, learning abilities, sexual orientation and gender. There's a large report that talks about the economic indicators of quality of life and that includes housing, income data, employment and a wide variety of other factors.

Crane also points out quality of life means different things to different people. Obviously what is important to a small business owner wouldn't be a priority for a ten-year-old student and what interests either one of them might not be of interest to a senior. So they've tried to create something for everybody so they can see themselves in the reports. The reports also provides suggestions on how they might be able to make their community better. More information about the Social Research and Planning Council's research can be found at perthhuron.unitedway.ca/research. More information about current, locally sourced insights into the well-being of Perth-Huron, can be found at myPerthHuron.ca.