New Leaf Foundation’s Youth Wellness Survey was created in the spring of 2021 with the goal of engaging young people in Toronto and the surrounding area to share their vision of individual and community wellness.

Our objectives included using what we learned to inform our programming and approaches, as well as to share the findings for the benefit of other youth service providers and caregivers.

The survey was developed in consultation with YouthREX, a research and evaluation initiative based at the School of Social Work at York University. The survey was designed around 3 general areas of inquiry:

• youth’s experience of stress
• how young people define and/or imagine wellness for themselves as individuals, as well as for their broader community
• the role that youth see themselves playing in cultivating personal and community wellness