Drafting Your City's CFC Map Parameters

Congratulations on drafting your CFC map mission statement! Now you and your team will craft a Map Parameters document that you can share with potential partners, community members, funders and others.  

The map parameters document is simply a checklist of the key components or characteristics you want your map to include. It should align with your values and the map abstract and mission statement you’ve already  written. Your parameters document may evolve and change as your process unfolds, and this is to be expected. For example, after receiving data form the parent survey, we saw how important it was for parents to know in advance what amenities existed in the various locations on the map. For this reason, GUB created an Amenities Chart on our map’s side 2. Also, at GUB, we listed our map parameters on a large piece of chart paper and hung it in the office where we could see it and refer to it during team meetings and meetings with our map designers. This help keep us on track.

After reading through our map parameters doc below, we ask you to create your own parameters doc. 

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GUB’s Child-Friendly City Map Parameters Document

• Printed format (first, then digital version)
• Focus: children ages 0-10
• Include the ideas of caregivers/parents, nursing and pregnant moms
• Create a map that very young children can “read”, using pictures
• Want local and visiting families to utilize the map
• Will include physical locations that are open to the public (don’t require membership to use amenities) and are not commercial (no restaurants or retail stores included on printed version; these likely will be included on digital version)–for example, parks, trails, public plazas, places to play, etc.
• Will include an amenities chart for caregivers and parents to use to plan outings with their children
• Underwritten by a foundation, one big business sponsorship or several smaller sponsorships
• Map design will include interactive elements, bright colors
• Start with pilot teachers/schools, then broaden the outreach process to invite community organizations
• Develop criteria for what is included on the map (since not everything will fit on the printed version); will do this with input from child, youth and adults
• Embrace an iterative map making process 
• Include biking, walking, and public transit connections
• Should it include parking availability close to child-friendly amenities?
• Could it include a “walking radius”? Decide who’s walking? 4 - 8 year olds?

Map Design

• Side 1 (highlight downtown areas with child-friendly amenities)
• Side 2 (zoomed out to City of Boulder–includes neighborhood child-friendly places)
• Interactive activities

Map Basic Elements:

• Key with categories
• Labels, direction arrows
• Landmarks (young people’s favorite places)
• Geographic landmarks
• Compass rose
• Scale 
• Include seasonal elements?

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Draft Your City’s CFC Map Parameters Document

Now that you have read through GUB’s map parameters document, it’s your turn to draft a map parameters document for your CFC map. 

To begin, we recommend asking yourself the following questions: 

• Who’s the map for?
• Will it be a printed or digital map?
• Will some aspects be bilingual?
• What are the most important design elements to be included?
• Which places will be prioritized on the map?
• Will labels, key, directions be based on children’s drawings?
• What major geographical landmarks should be present in the background (ie. In Boulder, we have the Flatirons/foothills, Boulder Reservoir, etc.)
• Will there be an amenities chart for caregivers and parents to use for planning outings?

Add Your Map Parameters to Your Guiding Document

1. Again, go to the Your Templates folder on Google Drive and ensure that you have saved a copy of all of the documents within to your own Google Drive folder.
2. Once you have, open the document entitled 1.4 CFC Map Guiding Document. 
3. As a reminder, we have included the original GUB responses for the CFC map in Boulder. These are included in green. We have also included instructions for how to make this document relevant for your city in yellow. We advise that you delete the yellow highlighted information and remove and replace the green highlighting as you personalize your document. 
4. Go through the document and fill out the section entitled Map Parameters. 
5. Congratulations! You have just begun work on your Child Friendly Map Guiding Document!