Indicator: Perception of Communities As A Good Place To Raise Children

Priority or Priorities:  ACES/Resiliency
Initiative(s): Asset building schools and communities
Outcome (s): Communities promoting and modeling clear standards of behavior

Why This is Important

Parents and families who raise children have a stake in making their community a good place to do that. Communities that keep children and families at the heart of all decisions engage families in building better communities.

Where We Stand

For 2005, data is being collected differently for this indicator. For the years 2001 and 2004, this question was asked specifically to those with children in the household under the age of 18. Those results are still presented in the chart with an asterisk*. For 2005, the intention is to provide a more broad based measure that may tell a story that calls attention to all parts of our communities. This year the question was added to a bi-annual Tracking Survey © conducted by Critical Insights, a market research firm in Portland, Maine. This survey targets a more broad population of adult residents in Maine.

On this indicator, respondents are asked, “Overall, how would you rate your community as a place to raise children?” For 2005, 72% of the respondents rated their community as either “excellent” or “very good”. 19% rated their community as a “good” place to raise children and just 10% rated it as “fair”.

Data Source and Context

As mentioned above, for 2005 this indicator has a different data source. These respondents are not exclusively households with children ages 18 and younger. This indicator was the result of a purchased item (question) that was part of the Tracking Survey © conducted by Critical Insights one of their bi-annual survey efforts in November 2005. This public opinion survey had 601 respondents with only 30% of all respondents having children ages 18 and younger in the household.