by Nicole Mucci

Look around at any major metropolitan city – and a start contrast can often be found between those who may be struggling the most, and those who have the most – and it’s often within a city block or two. Vancouver, BC, is no exception – and in fact, it may have helped create some of the visuals surrounding the disparity of wealth and privilege between folks.

Children living in Vancouver’s Strathcona neighborhood, which includes the Downtown Eastside (DTES), are considered some of the most at-risk in British Columbia, according to the Early Development Instrument (EDI) Scale created by the Human Early Learning Partnership (HELP), of exhibiting developmental delays in emotional maturity[1].

Emotional Maturity: What Does That Include?

When the EDI Scale is looking at emotional maturity, in kindergarten children, they consider the following[2]:

  • Aggressive Behaviour:
    • Is the child considered a bully?
    • Is this child disobedient?
    • Do they have a hard time sharing – for example, do they take things from others without asking?
    • Do they get physically aggressive? Do they fight, bite, kick, punch or otherwise hurt others?
    • Are they able to control their temper? Do they tantrum?
            
  • Anxious & Fearful Behavior:
    • What is the child’s mood like? Unhappy? Depressed? Fearful? Anxious? Worried?
    • Do they cry often? Or having difficulties when their guardian drops them off?
    • Are they able to make their own decisions? Are they high-strung?
    • Do they appear shy?
  • Hyperactive & Inattentive Behaviour:
    • How difficult is it for this child to sit still, pay attention, wait their turn?
    • Do they struggle with being more impulsive than developmentally appropriate?
    • How restless are they when asked to be still? Is this possible? Are they fidgety?
  • Prosocial & Helping Behaviour: This section may seem strange as it considers some behaviours that are positive and show emotional stability and development. However, it makes sense to consider the opposite of the 3 prior behaviours, because the HELP team show an interesting relationship between Prosocial Behaviours and any o the three others listed above. Wherever there appears to be a lot of difficulty with aggression, anxiety, fear, or inattention, there appears to be a much lower amount of prosocial behaviour.
    • Is the child helpful with their peers?
    • Do they help clean up others’ messes, check in when another child gets hurt or feels sick?
    • Do they try to include children who appear to be left-out or help a peer that seems upset?
                     

Why Might Kids Living in Strathcona Be Struggling?

According to Still1in5, in 2020, nearly 1 in 4 children are living in poverty, with 50% of those children coming from lone-parent households. Poverty can critically disrupt key aspects of brain development, due to the “environmental adversities associated” (Berk. L. 2021) with poverty.

Here are a few ways that poverty can deeply impact early childhood development:

  • Inadequate nutrition can impact growth of both the body and the brain, it can also impact a child’s ability to focus on tasks as well as increased difficult in regulating their emotions
  • Diminished affection from caring adults for a variety of potential reasons, impacts a child’s understanding of relationships and self-regulation
  • Increased rates of stress, which can impact the neural pathways that a child’s brain develops

In fact, chronic stress, inadequate sleep or stimulation, and the many other struggles that kids in poverty face can cause an “eight to ten percent decrease” in the brain’s grey matter. This matters because it may cause the child to have increased difficulties with different things like language and memory.

People don’t choose to live in poverty – and this is an important distinction to make. Often, adults living in poverty may have a variety of other barriers or intersections that may marginalize them further. Some of these added factors include things like: transgenerational trauma which may impact the way that parents treat their children as a result of how they were raised. Strathcona also has a disproportionate number of racialized individuals living in the neighborhood, which can cause increased stigma or inequity in the way that a child may be treated in a classroom[3].

Finally, when looking at the behavoiurs that some kids in the Strathcona neighborhood appear to be exhibiting, like aggression, impulsiveness, inability to listen attentively, or being clingy, may have an unintentionally negative impact on the way they are treated at home as well – even if the behaviour stems from the home. This is part of a negative feedback loop between a caregiver and child that can have absolutely disastrous impacts on the child’s long-term well-being and sense of self[4].

So, What Can Be Done to Help?

Resilience is a major buzzword these days. From boardrooms to classrooms to frontline workers, the concept of being able to cope with, or adapt to, stressful or traumatic events[5] is becoming increasingly important. When looking at the young kids in Strathcona, who are exhibiting many detrimental behaviours that could put them at-risk of long-term struggles, early intervention is paramount.

But what could that early intervention look like? How can childhood resilience be built in a neighborhood that is rife with extreme poverty, substance use disorder, mental health struggles, economic disparity and more?

A community that cares and works diligently to not only help kids build resilience in meaningful ways but walks alongside their caregivers and guardians towards a more hopeful future.

Enter Union Gospel Mission’s recently opened Women & Families Centre.  Located in the heart of Strathcona at 616 Cordova Street, this building is meant to provide a safe and empowering space for the women and children. Here are a few of their programs, and a quick explanation of how they may impact a child’s long term emotional maturity:

The Sanctuary Pre-Recovery & Recovery Program walks alongside women, some who have just given birth, who want to enter an addiction recovery program. What makes The Sanctuary so unique is that it gives new moms an opportunity to not only stay with their newborns as they journey through the beginning stages of addiction recovery, but the low-income housing, education counselling programs, and daycare centre all within the building, are meant to provide a sense of stabilization for up to five years. This stability provides a new parent who might otherwise lose their child to foster care or raise them in an unstable and potentially dangerous environment, with parenting and attachment classes to ensure that the early years of her child’s life are positive and filled with opportunity and space to grow, rather than deal with inequity and adversity[6].  If a child spends their early years in a stable housing situation, that involves a tight-knit community of people around, they are more likely to exhibit the prosocial behaviours listed above, and not the antisocial ones, like aggression and fearfulness.

UGM’s Eastsiders Homework Club & Family Camps: For children to learn how to become resilient, they need to have adults who are not their immediate caregiver, who provide them with safety and affection. The outreach team that works with the Eastsiders does this every day to every youngster who walks through their doors. Additionally, a healthy afterschool snack is provided, children are encouraged to learn life skills – including emotional regulation, time management and consistency.

The Strathcona neighborhood has some good amenities throughout – however, many of them are not always easily accessible or affordable for kids who living entrenched in poverty. UGM’s Camps & Christmas Hampers teams walks alongside families to provide the additional services and extracurriculars that a child needs to develop their sense of self-worth and excitement.

Sadly, there is no silver bullet that will magically address the many inequities and struggles faced by the kids living in the Strathcona neighborhood, but there is hope that as each life is positively impacted and change, that a ripple effect will occur.

References

[1] edi_w7_subscale_communityprofile_sd_39.pdf (ubc.ca)

[2] edibc_wave7_2019_provincialreport.pdf (ubc.ca)

[3] Berk, Laura E. (2021). Infants and Children: Prenatal through Middle Childhood (9th ed.), Pearson

[4] Berk, Laura E. (2021). Infants and Children: Prenatal through Middle Childhood (9th ed.), Pearson

[5] Berk, Laura E. (2021). Infants and Children: Prenatal through Middle Childhood (9th ed.), Pearson

[6] The Sanctuary | Union Gospel Mission (ugm.ca)