The City of Quinte West will be developing a “pulse check” public-facing online tool that will track key performance indicators across identified pillars that will help with the development of the upcoming Community Safety and Well-Being (CSWB) plan for 2026-2030.
In a presentation of the 2025 Community Safety and Well-Being Report to council at its meeting on Wednesday, Manager of Communications and Community Engagement Rebecca Cotter says the city will work with Loyalist College’s Centre for Healthy Communities over the next 18 months to develop and implement the city’s first pulse check tool.
“The pulse check tool will provide a system for collecting and tracking data across all community safety and well-being pillars within the upcoming plan,” Cotter explained to council.
“In this partnership, Loyalist College’s Centre for Healthy Communities will lead the data collection and analysis process, and city staff will coordinate the pulse check dashboard as a web-based visualization tool to display the data that we collect. Once developed, the pulse check tool will serve as a resource for evaluating progress and identifying service gaps, generating results that will inform the priorities of our next community safety and well being plan.”
Pillar 1 is affordability which includes the following priorities:
- Income and social security
- Employment and training
- Food security
- Housing
Pillar 2 is health care which includes the following priorites
- Physical health
- Mental health
Pillar 3 is connectivity which includes the following priorities:
- Geography and infrastructure
- Social support and inclusion
- Youth education
- Development and emergency services
Councillor Zack Card, who sits as chair of the Quinte West Community Safety and Well-Being Advisory Committee, expressed his support for the tool saying it will help give more data to help guide decision making.
“I think it’s a very strong roadmap toward our next plan, and specifically utilizing the data and analytics as well as community engagement is a really big step,” Councillor Card tells council.
“All of that data and analytics will really help, I think, guide the policy-making and resource allocation and some of those kind of hard recommendations.”
Updates to the tool would take place every three years.
In her report, Cotter states that procurement of services will be single-sourced from Loyalist College’s Centre for Healthy Communities, in the value of $35,500 + HST.
Approximately $14,500 +HST from the 2025 CSWB budget will be used in 2025 to fund the project, with the remaining $17,000 +HST to be paid in 2026.
Council approved executing the agreement.
