The following is a guest post from Community Health Initiatives, Health Services, Region of Peel. It originally appeared in the Peel Think Share newsletter, Summer 2015 edition.
On April 17, 2015 over 100 representatives from Peel community based agencies, along with faculty and students from Sheridan College, came together to share brilliant local research in support of improving outcomes for children and youth. The research covered a wide range of topics and disciplines including health, justice, social services, education, the arts and early child development.
Finding innovative solutions to complex issues facing the child and youth sector today was one of the events key themes. It is only through collaboration, crossing sector boundaries, and sometimes “breaking the mould” that we can get to more innovative and sustainable solutions for some of the most complex issues facing our children and youth (e.g. employment, education, gender identity, the justice system, mental health and substance use, violence,physical activity and nutrition, etc.).
This event is just the beginning! As we move forward we’ll be able to foster relationships with the incredible post-secondary institutions we have in our region to support community-based organizations and find efficient and effective solutions to some of their complex programming,organizational and service delivery issues. What better way to engage post-secondary students, then through capstone research projects as part of the process of finding solutions while honing their craft!
The Region of Peel, Sheridan College and the Peel Child and Youth Initiative congratulate and thank all of the poster and panel presenters for sharing their research! We look forward to planning more initiatives to foster the relationships between community agencies and local academia and sparking innovative solutions to complex youth issues.
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