{"id":60525,"date":"2019-10-15T11:48:13","date_gmt":"2019-10-15T15:48:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsroom.carleton.ca\/?post_type=cu_story&p=60525"},"modified":"2025-10-17T16:30:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-17T20:30:07","slug":"social-innovation-lab-youth-homelessness","status":"publish","type":"cu_story","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/story\/social-innovation-lab-youth-homelessness\/","title":{"rendered":"New Social Innovation Lab Aims to End Youth Homelessness"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n New Social Innovation Lab Aims to End Youth Homelessness\n <\/h1>\n \n <\/header>\n <\/div>\n\n \n <\/path>\n <\/path>\n <\/svg>\n <\/div>\n\n \n\n <\/div>\n<\/section>\n\n

Jacqueline Kennelly<\/a> doesn\u2019t want to just curb homelessness that plagues up to 40,000 Canadian youths each year and 6,000 on any given night. She wants to eradicate it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kennelly, a professor in Carleton University\u2019s Department of Sociology and Anthropology<\/a>, is working with the Networks of Centres of Excellence (NCE)<\/a> to create Making the Shift: Youth Homelessness Social Innovation Lab, an $18-million, five-year project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Prof. Jacqueline Kennelly<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The lab will have a real-world impact on young people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness across Canada by generating evidence-based models through research on prevention and supports that work best for at-risk communities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The lab also hopes to partner with municipal, provincial and federal governments to shift from emergency responses to a planned approach that invests in preventing and ending homelessness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Youth homelessness was not the field where Kennelly thought she\u2019d end up. Yet it\u2019s become the culmination of the work she cares about most.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\u201cMy work has always revolved around youth engagement,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

\u201cOver the years, it has shifted towards low-income youth and homeless youth. It\u2019s always been about young people.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

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Making a Difference with Youth Homelessness<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

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Before doing a PhD, Kennelly was working at Youth Net Vancouver, an organization focused on mental health. As the program co-ordinator, she created a peer-to-peer suicide prevention program for young people.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\u201cYouth homelessness became the issue that is most urgent to me,\u201d Kennelly says. \u201cOne that I felt I could make a difference in.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The lab is funded by a lot of big players \u2013 the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council<\/a>, the Natural Science and Engineering Research Council<\/a>, Canadian Institutes of Health Research<\/a>, Industry Canada<\/a> and Health Canada<\/a>, to bring researchers across disciplines together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Kennelly is the co-lead of one of the central research themes, prevention and early intervention. She is also a member of the research management committee, the body which makes final recommendations for funding across the NCE.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kennelly says the research will involve a focus on action.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\u201cWe want to pilot a way of generating evidence that is actually grounded in young people\u2019s experiences and driven by them in a more participatory way,\u201d she says. \u201cThe research is always meant to lead to change.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The lab hopes to find evidence that can be used to inform Canadian policy.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Social Innovation Lab Targets Young People at Risk<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

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With her focus on prevention, Kennelly is working with schools and says she is now understanding how ill-equipped they are to respond to young people at risk.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\u201cThere are so many points in the existing system that are massive holes in the social safety net,\u201d Kennelly says.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

\u201cWe want to develop tools and workshops for schools that are co-delivered by youth with lived experience.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The child welfare system is almost a direct pipeline into homelessness, she says, especially for Indigenous young people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI hope that with this lab, we\u2019ll figure out how to change that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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With her focus on prevention, Kennelly is working with schools and says she is now understanding how ill-equipped they are to respond to young people at risk.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The lab is also a major first for SSHRC. Usually the NCEs are led by NSERC or CIHR-funded researchers. Making the Shift<\/a> is the first SSHRC-based NCE to be funded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll be using the funding to give to projects that will push forward the agenda of ending youth homelessness,\u201d says Kennelly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The lab will focus on participatory engagement of young people, especially marginalized youth who are disproportionately affected by homelessness, such as Indigenous, LGBTQ2S+ and racial minorities.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\u201cIt\u2019s about trying to ensure that we\u2019re integrating young people with lived experience at every level, so that they are part of the decision-making,\u201d Kennelly says.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

They also hope to provide scholarships to help youth achieve their full potential.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere will be lived experience scholarships, so that young people who have experienced homelessness can have some funding to attend university and be mentored into the research process.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kennelly says that the most rewarding aspect of her work is the relationships she has with young people across the country.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\u201cIt is such a privilege to be able to sit down with folks and hear their stories,\u201d Kennelly says.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

\u201cBut there is a big responsibility that comes with that, which is to use information in a way that generates further justice for them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other organizations involved in the partnership include A Way Home Canada, the Canadian Observatory on Homelessness, MaRS Centre for Impact Investing, and many community organizations, as well as researchers from across the country and internationally.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\nMore Stories<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jacqueline Kennelly doesn\u2019t want to just curb homelessness that plagues up to 40,000 Canadian youths each year and 6,000 on any given night. She wants to eradicate it. Kennelly, a professor in Carleton University\u2019s Department of Sociology and Anthropology, is working with the Networks of Centres of Excellence (NCE) to create Making the Shift: Youth […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":410,"featured_media":60526,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"cu_story_type":[28,13],"cu_story_tag":[1920,1925],"class_list":["post-60525","cu_story","type-cu_story","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","cu_story_type-community-partnerships","cu_story_type-research-discovery","cu_story_tag-faculty-of-arts-and-social-sciences","cu_story_tag-research"],"acf":{"cu_post_thumbnail":"blueprint"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story\/60525","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/cu_story"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/410"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story\/60525\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":98530,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story\/60525\/revisions\/98530"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60526"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60525"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"cu_story_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story_type?post=60525"},{"taxonomy":"cu_story_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story_tag?post=60525"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}