West Edmonton Supports For Stress Management - Report

Background
In early fall 1994, the West Edmonton Business Association (WEBA) approached (then the Community Development Office, Caritas Health Group), and requested a presentation on Stress Management. To accommodate this request, the Jamie Platz YMCA was brought in as a partner.

In planning this presentation it was believed that simply providing information on stress management was not enough. People find relief for stress in many ways. It was therefore decided that a comprehensive resource list of all the businesses, associations or individuals who provide stress management in the West End would be developed. This would be a resource that the members of WEBA could use for themselves, or share with their staff and possibly their clients.

The goal of this project is to promote health in the west end by:

• Producing a comprehensive resource list of all of the businesses, associations or individuals who provide Stress Management in the West End.
• Circulating a summary of the list to the WEBA members and all of the respondents.
• Making the comprehensive list available to WEBA members and others who submit a request.
• Present the results to WEBA.

Guiding Principles
In completing this project, several guiding principles were used:

• The West End was defined as everything West of 124 St. and South to the river.
• Stress management was defined as any activity which involves movement and/or obvious forms of relaxation. This included traditional activities such as sports, fitness and massage, and non-traditional activities such as acupuncture and holistic medicine.
• The focus of this project is on adult programming.

Survey and Database Design
A standard survey was developed that could be used to gather information about the stress management provider.

The following information was gathered: name, address, phone number, hours of operation, type of service, cost of service, clientele served, community league.

Once the survey was complete, it was reviewed to ensure database compatibility and ease of information retrieval.

Survey Process
The following steps were taken during the survey process:

• Recruit and orient volunteers.
• Divide West End geographically amongst volunteers.
• Develop a list of potential respondents by going through yellow pages, driving/walking through area, and contacting leads.
• Complete survey, using survey script as a guideline
• Send survey follow-up note
• Enter all surveys into database and produce resource list.
• Send all respondents a summary of results
• Make a comprehensive resource list available to all who request it.

Results
The results showed that the West End has a great deal to offer towards stress management. A total of 90 potential respondents were identified and of those, 65 were surveyed. Twenty-five were not surveyed due to time constraints or inability to contact.

The compiled results identified 18 categories and the number of groups which provide each service

Categories of Stress Management | Number of Groups

• Sports/Recreation/Fitness..................35
• Counseling/Psychology......................11
• Massage Therapy..............................19
• Chiropractors......................................9
• Martial Arts........................................7
• Stress Relief Management..................7
• Other................................................6
• Acupuncture......................................4
• Family Support..................................4
• Physiotherapy...................................3
• Nutrition Counseling...........................3
• Holistic Medicine...............................2
• Crisis Intervention..............................2
• Kinesiology.......................................1
• Sport Medicine..................................1
• Pain Management..............................1
• Wellness...........................................1

These resources are summarized on a comprehensive resource list entitled "West Edmonton Supports for Stress Management - Comprehensive Resource List". The list is organized first by Stress Management Category, and second, in alphabetical order including addresses and phone numbers. There is also a section which includes businesses that were not contacted as well as community leagues and sports associations.

Conclusion
Edmonton's West End has a great deal of support for stress management. Eighteen different possibilities were identified. The most prevalent sources of stress management were the traditional forms such as Sports/Recreation/Fitness, Massage Therapy, Counseling/Psychology, Chiropractors, Martial Arts and Stress Relief Management. There were also several alternate but less prevalent forms of stress management. These included Acupuncture, Physiotherapy, Nutrition Counseling, Sport Medicine, Pain Management, Wellness, Family Support, Holistic Medicine, Crisis Intervention, Kinesiology and Other.

This information was compiled on a comprehensive resource list. A Summary of the resource list was sent to all of the respondents and presented to WEBA on November 22, 1994. The respondents and WEBA members were also given the opportunity to request the "West Edmonton Supports for Stress Management - Comprehensive Resource List".

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