About GetOut!
GETOUT! Push Your Boundaries - Vancouver’s Youth Legacy arose out of recommendations from the City ’s 2003 Report entitled “Ensuring Vancouver’s Olympic and Paralympic Legacy” that brought the health and well-being of Vancouver’s youth to the forefront of the civic agenda.
The report called for the creation of a Youth Legacy Program for Sport and the Arts for children and youth including:
- a 10% target to increase physical activity in youth
- an increased youth access to programs and spaces for youth
- creation of an endowment fund of $10M through a plebiscite in the fall of 2005
- a Task Force with proposed funding for 2003–05
- partnerships with other levels of government, local and youth organizations and the private sector to further these goals
A core working group comprising of staff from Social Planning, the Vancouver Board of Parks & Recreation and the Office of Cultural Affairs was formed to develop a framework and action plan which was approved by City Council and the Vancouver Board of Parks & Recreation in July 2004.
During the first phase of the program, the working group focused on program development and coordination. This included:
- Undertaking a community and youth consultation process to inform the shape of the programs
- Development of three pilot programs: Grants to Youth, Community Partnership Programs, and New Recreation Programs
- Contracting a research and evaluation team to assist with research and outcome assessment
- Formation of an Advisory Committee to provide strategic direction to the Task Group (members represent the youth, arts, sports, culture, youth at risk & in care, education, aboriginal, disability, grant funding, newcomer, social services, and gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender communities)
The vision of Get Out! responds to a noted decrease in levels of youth activity and a correlated health concern cited in many recent reports. It also addresses the link between physical activity as well as engagement in the arts and community work, and improved mental, social and physical health.
The Get Out! programs developed to date address these very issues and share a number of objectives:
- Improve long-term health and well-being of youth
- Promote active and sustained participation for youth in recreation, sports, arts and culture
- Create opportunities for youth to foster creativity and self-expression
- Increase levels of physical activity of youth
- Increase the engagement of inactive youth and youth from diverse communities
- Encourage partnerships and collaboration between youth and the larger community
- Encourage the development of partnership programs between youth and youth-serving or community-based organizations
- Build capacity for youth
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Read the reports:
- GetOut! Youth Legacy Program - Evaluation and Next Steps (September 15, 2006)
click here to download (
pdf, 155kb)
- GetOut! Youth Legacy Program (Appendix B):
Impacts & lessons learned from the GetOut! pilot year 2005-2006 (May 2006)
click here to download ( pdf, 1Mb)
- GetOut! - Olympic Youth Legacy for Physical Activity, Sport, Culture and the Arts - Grants Recommendations (March 31, 2005)
click here to go to the report online
- Olympic Youth Legacy for Physical Activity, Sport, Culture and the Arts (July 8, 2004)
click here to go to the report online
- Olympic Youth Legacy: 2003 Events (December 4, 2003)
click here to go to the report online
- Ensuring Vancouver’s Olympic and Paralympic Legacy (February 19, 2003)
click here to download ( pdf, 656kb)
Get Out! Youth Legacy Program, GVTV, 03/17/2005
- High hopes for Get Out, Vancouver Courier, 12/20/2004
by Sandra Thomas - Staff writer
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