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Survey exposes issues that need to be asked continued from p.1 DiBattista noted more than 10,000 Grade 7 and 10 students from the Halton Catholic District School Board (HCDSB) and Halton District School Board (HDSB) participated in the survey, in October/November 2012. Those surveyed included 3,862 students from Oakville, 3,144 in Burlington, 1,702 from Milton, and 1,394 in Halton Hills. The Our Kids Network is a Halton-wide partnership of organizations that promote the healthy development, security, and safety of all children, youth and families through neighbourhood collaboration, service integration and measuring results. "We poll a great number of our students to find out what the state-of-the-union is at that particular moment; to give us a snapshot of what is happening," said DiBattista. "Not only do we collect the data, analyze (it), but we use the data and that is key... The focus of Our Kids is really to take research and put it into practice so our practitioners can use it for planning... for evaluation... to get the resources they need and to move their programs forward that really benefit kids, children and families." One part of the survey looked at 20 `developmental assets' available to youths. These include family support, school engagement, spiritual engagement, self-esteem, youth programs and positive peer influence. It found that since 2009/10, there had been small improvements in almost all. For example, the school engagement survey found the number of Grade 7s reporting a high level of school engagement and connectedness rose from 82 per cent in 2009/10 to 87 per cent in the 2012/13 survey. The Grade 10 figures for the same asset are lower, but still rose from 67 per cent in 2009/10 to 71 per cent in the 2012/13 survey. On criminal activity, the survey found five per cent of female Grade 7 students admitted to committing some kind of criminal activity. This was 14 per cent for Grade 10 girls. For Grade 7 boys, 14 per cent reported committing some kind of criminal activity with the number rising to 26 per cent for Grade 10 boys. "Do you see the trend? Assets go down between Grades 7 and 10 and criminal activity goes up. Is there a relationship there? We need to ask ourselves that question," said DiBattista. "We define criminal activity when our kids answer `yes' to whether they have damaged or destroyed property, if they have carried a weapon, if they have sold drugs or they have been part of a group that has broken the law." These criminal activity figures, however, are down from 2009/10 and 2006/07. The survey found substance use has dropped since 2009/10 with marijuana smoking and illegal opioid use down five-seven per cent and binge drinking down by 13 per cent amongst Grade 10 students. Yet, 18 per cent of surveyed Grade 10 students admitted using marijuana in the past year and 11 per cent said they used illegal opioid pills. DiBattista said binge drinking remains a concern with 34 per cent of surveyed Grade 10 students reporting at least one episode in the past year. "What we know is the percentage of decline is much higher in Halton than it is in the rest of Ontario," she said. "So, something is happening here that is really facilitating the drop in this behaviour." The good had to be taken with the bad in a number of other categories including family support. Although the survey found since 2006/07, there has been a continuous improvement in levels of family support, communication and more defined boundaries, it also showed levels of family support, communication and boundaries continue to decline from Grade 7-10. Under the healthy living category, the survey found small improvements in the number of students who report eating breakfast, having a family meal together, fruit and vegetable intake, and walking, riding or inline skating to school. That said, 20 per cent of Halton students in Grades 7 and 10 remain overweight or obese and 50 per cent of Grade 10 students are not meeting physical activity guidelines of 60 minutes per day at least five days per week. The survey found more than one-third of Grade 7 students are not meeting the physical activity guidelines. 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