About the Community Supports Survey

You’ve arrived at this page because you’d like to know more about the Community Supports Survey, a tool that gathers information about the support goals and services used by families in Waterloo Region.

Privacy and this project

Because this is an anonymous survey, staff at the organization administering the survey and anyone else who sees this data will have no way of identifying you or getting in touch with you if you choose to tell us something about yourself or your life experiences.

When information is transmitted or stored on the internet, privacy cannot be guaranteed. There is always a risk that your responses may be intercepted by a third party (e.g., government agencies, hackers). LimeSurvey temporarily collects your computer IP address to avoid duplicate responses in the dataset but will not collect information that could identify you personally.

Some of the information you shared in the survey, such as your gender or race, might be used to guess at your identity.  To protect against this, Marillac Place will only keep your answers if at least 9 other people answered the same as you, making it harder to guess who you are.  But we must manually take this data out, so there is always a small risk a third party intercepting it.

Data storage and sharing

An important part of this research is making sure that your data can impact as many programs as possible.  For that reason, different programs in our region are collaborating to make larger data sets, learn about the needs and ideas of families and share what they learn with each other.  An important part of that is sharing your data.  Here we explain in more detail how your data will be stored and shared.

Data is collected anonymously by LogicalOutcomes using a survey platform called LimeSurvey. LogicalOutcomes is a Canadian nonprofit organization and evaluation vendor. Data is stored indefinitely on an encrypted MySQL database on Canadian servers.

LogicalOutcomes will work with Marillac Place, a community organization serving homeless families, to combine survey responses in reports that are seen by participating organizations in the project. Your answers will be combined with other people’s answers in these reports. This is to prevent anyone from guessing who you are.  In all these cases, access to your anonymous individual responses will be password-protected.

If you choose to include your data in the open data set, then your data will be available in the future as part of a large dataset. That data set will show your individual responses but will not show any identifying information about you. Your answer to any question about yourself will only be included in this data set if at least 9 other people answered the same thing as you. This is to make sure that it is difficult to guess at who you are.

The open dataset will be available from Marillac Place by request and those hoping to use the data will sign a document outlining how it should be used. This open data is intended to be used widely to gain insight on the needs and ideas of families accessing services in Waterloo Region, but we will not have control over its exact uses.

List of participating organizations

The organization administering theis survey is working together with other agencies in our community that serve at-risk families.  Each organization will use the survey to collect data from families that use its programs. Afterwards, the data will be shared among the organizations to make larger datasets, learn about the needs and ideas of families and share what we learn with each other. The following is a list of organizations that are currently participating in this project:

Other organizations that serve families in Waterloo Region may join this project in the future, so this list may change.

Supports for families in Waterloo Region

The survey touches on a number of areas where families might need support. The following is a list of organizations by support area.  Please reach out to Greta James at Marillac Place (greta@marillacplace.ca) if you would like help connecting with any of these organizations or help with a support area not listed.

Housing

Food assistance programs

Other material resources

Mental health and wellbeing

  • Here 24/7 - Crisis Support (1-844-437-3247)

  • Front Door - Access to child and youth mental health services, including live-in treatment, assessment services, family crisis and prevention counselling

  • Camino Wellbeing + Mental Health - Various programs across the mental health continuum

  • Counselling Collaborative of Waterloo Region - Affordable Counselling (519-804-1097)

Help with appointments

Parenting and child development

Childcare and children's programming

Medical and dental care

Employment and education

  • Working Centre - Job search support, apprenticeships/internships, community connections, career counselling, Training and Education

  • Lutherwood Employment Services - Resume and cover letter writing, job search strategies, interview preparation, connecting with employers, paid placements, on-the-job training opportunities

  • KW Multicultural Centre - Job and Career Services for Newcomers to Canada

  • Reception House - Employment Placements for refugees

Pre and post natal supports

  • SHORE Centre - Pregnancy options & supports, birth control & pregnancy tests, prenatal vitamins, support during & after pregnancy

  • Region of Waterloo Parenting Support Page - Extensive list of parenting support programs including pregnancy supports, breastfeeding supports, and healthy babies, healthy children

  • Pregnancy Centre - Practical resources and emotional support for those pregnant or parenting through crisis

  • Camino Wellbeing + Mental Health - Pre and postnatal groups (Contact: arennie@caminowellbeing.ca)

Safety/domestic violence

Harm reduction/addiction services

  • Sanguen Outreach Programs - Mobile community health vans (harm reduction supplies, needle exchange, naloxone, peer and social supports, food clothing and hygiene items)

  • Sanguen Health Centre - Naloxone training, specialized nursing care, harm reduction and substance use training, hepatitis testing

  • Consumption and Treatment Services - Safe injection site, drug testing program (150 Duke St. West, 9am to 9pm seven days a week)

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