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Drayton Valley included in $2M study of youth in boom-bust oil towns

May 12, 2017 | 7:57 AM

The town of Drayton Valley will be one of three communities that will be part of a new study looking at how producing oil and gas affects the mental health and well-being of young people.

The five-year study will take into account the resiliency of young people and the systems they interact with, spread over three separate case studies. 

Included with Drayton Valley are Cambridge Bay, Nunavut as well as Secunda, South Africa. Researchers will be learning about the biological and psychological resilience of young people, families, communities and even the resilience of environmental systems. 

The $2 million study will be headed by Dalhousie University researcher Michael Ungar, who says Drayton Valley was partially chosen because of its innovation and forward thinking plans. 

“Drayton Valley was an incredibly innovative community to work with. The day care spaces being built, the efforts to make housing more affordable for young families, the recreational spaces,” he says. “The community seems to have a vision of itself, I am impressed by the initiative that people are thinking really longer term.” 

The study will focus on 15-24-year-olds, with Ungar saying they chose that demographic because of all the pressures they face.

“Those young people are transitioning out of their families and into their communities. They have big decisions over jobs, education, relationships,” he adds.

Ungar says it is a fascinating time to start the study, as oil sits higher than it did at the beginning of 2016.

“If there is an uptick in terms of the community, we will be able to monitor those changes, and how that change influences those young people’s lives. Their parents have more work, maybe more money is coming into the house. How will they cope, is more money necessarily a good or bad thing?” 

The hope is that the information gathered during the study will be able to be passed onto people on town council or in the oil industry to provide clear ideas on how young people experience vast changes in the economy, especially during boom and bust cycles. 

The Canadian Institute for Health Research will fund the study. Local and national industry partners will contribute too, along with organizations like the Canadian Red Cross.

“People are curious about this, and are invested in finding out the answers to this,” Ungar says in regards to the long list of partners wanting in on the project. 

Researchers will arrive next week, working in the community to start building on their study. Ungar will be arriving in June.