By Anne Gibson
The twelve members of the Vail Serves Vail subcommittee spent six months developing a three question “Survey Monkey” to determine what parents considered their biggest concerns for themselves and their children.
Two thousand and forty-one responses were received. As could be expected, the majority of the 55% responses came from parents of elementary-aged child. The biggest surprise was that 40.27% came from high school parents, followed by 37.97% from middle school parents.
So, who and why was this survey developed? “Though our quarterly Vail Religious Leader Luncheons are always productive, we never felt like we were able to take the rich conversation that we had and turn them into service to our community, which is where all of our hearts are. The Vail Religious Leaders decided that we needed a working group to put the meaningful discussions that we had at the luncheon into action in the community. Thus, a small subcommittee was formed, and outstanding service projects and connections have been happening ever since,” said Heather Stough, Community and Connections Director for the Vail School District.
The second question asked parents to check their top three concerns regarding children in your community. The third questions asked parents what were their top three personal concerns.
“This survey of families in the Vail community has been the top priority of the Vail Serves Vail subcommittee for several months. The survey is at the heart of our mission, which is to connect community family needs and concerns with community resources. The survey results give us a solid starting point to understand the basic needs and concerns of our families and allow us to move forward to connect these with resources from religious leaders and others in the community,” said Cole Thies, who led the survey.
The three top concerns for their children rank bullying first at 57.31%, mental health (depressions, suicide, anxiety) a close second at 57.02%, with social media ranked third at 50.42%.
The three top parental concerns listed finances and economics as the top concern at 67.78, followed by health for self or others at 50.65%, and other family relationships/communication third at 45.74%.
The complete survey including the comments will be presented to the Vail Religious Leaders at their January meeting.
“Phase Two is where the survey and the Resource Directory come together. With the results of the survey, Vail Serves Vail will use the Resource Director to connect families and individual with help available from existing programs and services within the community and among the Vail Religious Leaders through Vail Family University and other outreach efforts,” said Debbie Andrus, who is taking the lead with the Resource Directory.
“We truly appreciate the help of the Vail School District and the over 2,000 families who gave of their time to participate in the survey in a couple of weeks,” Cole Thies said on behalf of the Vail Serves Vail subcommittee.
Vail Serves Vail invites new members. For further information call (520) 347-6346.
