School of Social Work will serve as hub for Eastern Ontario
Local youth centres are acquiring allies in their work with young people: researchers from the School of Social Work.
The FPA researchers will be collaborating with grassroots support workers in a program called YouthREX, or the Youth Research and Evaluation eXchange, funded by the Province of Ontario.
“We know very little about this sector and how effective it is,” says Social Work Professor Sarah Todd, who is the academic lead for the Ontario East Knowledge Mobilization Hub. “So we will be supporting youth organizations as they effectively collect information on what they’re doing and share knowledge with each other and their funders.”
Todd is reaching out to youth organizations such as the Youth Services Bureau, Operation Come Home and the Ten Oaks Project, as well as any Carleton faculty or graduate students who have experience or an interest in working with youth programs.
The youth program staff will be able to access supports and resources to evaluate the effectiveness of their work and to share it with other youth organizations in Ontario through a new web-based portal.
“There’s fabulous stuff happening in these really small centres, but the staff doesn’t always have the capacity or resources to carry out research that documents their impact on youth,” explains Todd.
The School of Social Work is one of five provincial hubs for the YouthREX project, which will continue until 2017. The project is a collaboration with York University.
Wednesday, December 10, 2014 in Groundbreaking Research, News, School of Social Work
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