Partnering for Change: Project Updates
Thank You. We want to begin by thanking all of our partners on this Partnering for Change Project for your help with the process of collecting data. We have collected substantial information over the past two years. Your help in sharing data, assisting in recruitment, helping us make connections, and so much more has been invaluable.
Jun 29, 2018
We have now completed the data collection part of this project and would like to take this opportunity to report back to you. As you may recall we collected three types of data in three sites.
Data Collection
3 Sites: Hamilton, Niagara and Toronto
3 Kinds of Data
- intake data from partner agencies to determine prevalence of disability among homeless youth
- environmental scan interviews across education, homelessness, disability, child welfare, youth employment sectors
- interviews with youth who have a disability and have experienced homelessness and with frontline workers who work with youth
|
|
Hamilton
|
Niagara |
Toronto |
Total |
|
# Agencies Sharing Intake Data |
3 |
2 |
1 |
7 |
|
Environmental Scan Interviews |
8 |
14 |
10 |
32 |
|
Environmental Scan Focus Groups |
9 |
1 |
5 |
15 |
|
Youth Interviews |
14 |
12 |
12 |
38 |
|
Frontline Worker Interviews |
9 |
6 |
11 |
26 |
Data Sharing
Conferences
We have been sharing the results of our preliminary project findings in a number of ways. First we have presented information at conferences; local conferences (Woodstock and Hamilton), national conferences (Calgary, Toronto and Winnipeg) and a few international conferences (Australia and Portugal). For example, we presented on the topic of “The Invisibility of Disability for Homeless Youth” at the recent Canadian Association to End Homelessness conference in Winnipeg and saw a number of project partners there.
Forum theatre
On February 16, we held a forum theatre workshop in Hamilton for students, service providers and project partners, entitled Overlooked Youth: Homelessness and Disability in Ableist Systems. The theatre script was developed by the co-researchers and our research team, based on stories collected from youth with intellectual, developmental and learning disabilities across the three project sites. Presented primarily by the co-researchers, the forum theatre presented a scene that wove together stories of disabled youths’ experiences in homelessness services. After performing the scene once, workshop participants were invited to take part – to join in and thereby disrupt and change the scene. Workshop attenders did so with enthusiasm and differing perspectives. A discussion about the findings of the project as well as the power of forum theatre concluded the event.
The forum theatre group has been invited to present the workshop in February in Ottawa at the Coming Up Together conference on youth homelessness.
McMaster Daily News
The Partnering for Change Project was featured in the McMaster Daily News in February, 2017. The link is pasted below:
City Committees
We hope to meet with each of the City Committees in the late spring of this year. This will be a time to present some of our preliminary findings and also to consider with you next steps for the project, including how to share the information from the project. There may be specific issues that city committees might want to pursue in collaboration with the research team. We can discuss these possibilities when we meet.