StreetjibeLinking youth poverty solutions
Practitioner Learning Community Project
Street Kids International Overview Presentation
Brent MacKinnon
The Context
York Region Landscape
York Region’s size and transport issues limit access to services
54% of homeless in York Region are youth under 25 – 1999 Crosslinks
44,000: The number fed by York Region’s food banks in 2004-05.
Youth poverty in Canada is growing
Our Point of View
Value in working together
Strengthening how we work is inextricably linked to community capacity building
Silo thinking limits our capacity to effectively work together
Constant search for New funding
Funder RequirementsEvaluation Results
Meet Service Mandate& Agency Mission
Opportunities to learn from each other are missed
All service domains have unique skills & knowledge to share
Treatment
Education Outreach
Residential
Health
Practitioner Learning
Community
Innovation can grow from a network of diverse workers
Our 3 year pilot project aims to increase worker & program effectiveness
By
Increasing staff capacity to plan, evaluate & implement services
In
A Learning Community
Made up of workers from diverse sectors
What are Learning Communities?
A Learning Community is made up of groups of people who share a passion for something they know how to do and interact regularly to learn how to do it better.
Workers learn from each other and infuse learnings within their Agency
Apply new engagement
skills
Worker effectiveness Is increased
Share experience & Knowledge
Adds capacity to organizations, constituents & communities
Networks
Staff
Programs
Governance
By learning from our tacit knowledge, we are strengthened
Practitioners outcomes (and organizations and community)
Are
Improved access to needed services
Increased evaluation skills for practitioners & program effectiveness
Better bridges for expertise to flow between organizations & staff
New engagement strategies & skills to deliver your services to/with youth
Increased evidence of growing best practices across sectors
A learning community - a cost effective tool for capacity building
Proven research on resilience & asset models, drive our thinking
An analysis of 40 years of research found the bestpredictor of successful change are two factors:
1) engagement in meaningful relationships1) engagement in meaningful relationships2) engagement in meaningful activities2) engagement in meaningful activities
83%83% of change involves these two factors17%17% is a result of technique
Youth will have more access to relevant programs & skilled workers
Street Kids International
Capacity Building in York Region
& Around the World
There is a York Region base of established partnerships
Expertise in capacity building & engaging partnerships span 19 yrs.
Street Kids International's presence
geographical reach.
Our Plan
Streetjibe is front line youth workers meeting regularly to learn from each other and applying that learning in their programs.
They share these new learnings within the youth service community so youth experiencing poverty will have increased access to effective and relevant programs.
Our learning community can make systemic changes in youth work
Increase effectiveness by learning together & applying new skills
Year I - establish a learning community of 18 – 24 practitioners
Treatment
Education Outreach
Residential
Health
Practitioner Learning
Community
Partnerships are created with agencies from designated locations
The first phase will launch the Project in select communities
Phase 1
The second phase will expand the Project Region wide
Phase 2Phase 1
The third phase will broaden & foster sustainability
Phase 3Phase 2Phase 1
Learning Community
Activities & key themes:
Goal – increase worker skills & program effectiveness
• Collaboration & sharing expertise
• Peer mentoring – build on worker assets
• Applying evaluation skills
Activities & key themes con’t
Workshops & 1:1 coaching
Integrating new skills & strategies into current practice;
Utilizing ICT tools to enhance practice & increase effectiveness
We learn from each others expertise;
Street Kids provide committed and experienced support:
Skills & resources we bring:
- Training & facilitation- Expertise & new engagement skills- Materials- Food & transportation
First Year – time commitments
Jan. – Sept. (9 months)
8 half day workshops2 hours on site coaching per month
Off site participation – 65 %On site participation – 35 %
Working together we can increase our strengths & resilience to end
youth poverty
Thank You
Street Kids International
References:
Canadian Council on Social Development: The Progress of Canada’s Children & Youth - www.ccsd.ca
Social Watch: http://www.socialwatch.org/en/fichasPais/35.html
Media Reports: Below the Line Series: (via York Region Food Network)http://www.yrfn.ca/media.htm
Youth Community Mapping Program: Street Kids International & Community Resource & Learning Room
http://halt.civiblog.org/blog
York Region Youth Summit 2001 Report
Planning For Tomorrow – Towards a Sustainable Region Presentation: York Region - http://www.region.york.on.ca/default.htm