STELLARTON
One of many important local conversations for Pictou County took place at the NSCC Pictou Campus on Wednesday evening, at AVital Conversation.
A large group of guests from communities across Pictou County, from assorted walks of life, shared perspectives. A Vital Conversation constituted one of many steps in improving the health of the region as a whole – and was part of the Vital Signs partnership.
Vital Signs is organized by the United Way of Pictou County and the Aberdeen Health Foundation to assess and improve the vitality of communities in Pictou County.
Part of Wednesday evening’s consultation, guests were encouraged to share their perspectives on what mattered to them, holding round-table discussions in small groups about what is important in Pictou County.
Karis Mitchell, a spokesperson for the Community Foundation of Nova Scotia, said the first session of Vital Signs in Stellarton was focused on community engagement.
What resulted from those discussions was the guests creating a list of various needs and priorities for Pictou County. These ranged from creating more welcoming communities and better public transportation, to much-needed health care improvements and more mental health services.
Mitchell said the overall goal was to build an evidence-based report – the Vital Signs Report – on the health of the community.
“Right now, we want people to tell us how we might improve the quality of life. We plan to highlight the answers we get for research and data,” said Mitchell.
“Overall, we’re very happy with the people who came out and had those great conversations with us,” said Jessica Smith, executive director of the United Way of Pictou County.
Smith said she noticed that a lot of commonality existed in what guests considered priorities – something she thought was good, because that lends itself to focus areas that the Vital Signs Report will be able to address.
“We can’t, unfortunately, report on every single issue or priority in Pictou County because of limited time and resources, so we need to hear what the top priorities are in the community, so we can focus on that, and focus on how we can improve upon those,” Smith said.
Smith noted that there will be more conversations similar to the one on Wednesday evening going on, since they are still working to get a list of priorities, so that data can be gathered, and existence research on it can be used.
Vital Signs’ goal is to measure, as it name suggests, the “vital signs” of a community – quality of life, income, health, education and a sense of belonging – to eventually see if those signs can be improved upon.
