Who Are the FFE Families?
Baseline research data provides snapshots about the life circumstances of Families First Edmonton (FFE) families.
FFE families share in common the experience of living on low income.
After that we see a very diverse group of families:
- FFE families are culturally diverse: They speak 92 different mother tongues and originate from 100 other countries. This poses challenges for services to arrange translation, cultural brokering and culturally appropriate services
- FFE families have on average 2.2 children: FFE families range from one to eleven children in the household. This data shows that many low income families look like moderate and high income families in their structure and size. Family size is important to consider when building social housing and considering childcare arrangements for services
- Higher number of Aboriginal families in the FFE study: Although Aboriginal families make up 5.3% of all Edmonton families regardless of income, they represent over 16.2% of the low income families in the FFE study. (The FFE project did not specifically try to sample more Aboriginals than other groups. The sampling frame was low income families in Edmonton)
- Aboriginal status is self-identified by the primary caregivers
This highlights the importance of considering the needs of Aboriginal families in programming and service delivery, including, Aboriginal cultural context (e.g. use of the medicine wheel), and Aboriginal cultural awareness training for staff. Edmonton has the country's second largest urban Aboriginal population, a young and rapidly growing population. In comparison to the rest of the Edmonton population, the urban Aboriginal population has relatively more people under the age of 25. The Aboriginal population in the last decade grew by 51% as compared to 21% growth of the Edmonton population as a whole.