Nothing about us, without us

By Joey Fitzpatrick. How the new credo for community-engaged research is making a difference both in communities and at universities. Emergency youth shelters serve a vital purpose, providing sanctuary to young people in crisis. Staff at these shelters are all too familiar with “revolving door syndrome,” in which the same vulnerable young people cycle through the social service network. Ideally, a person stays in a shelter temporarily before finding a suitable housing solution. But in most cases, the supports are not in place for that to happen. It’s a problem with no easy solution. The problem of revolving door syndrome was not specifically on her mind when Naomi Nichols began her doctoral studies at York University’s faculty of education in 2006. But she did have a clear vision of the direction of her research. “I knew I wanted to work in the area of service provision for marginalized youth, and was thinking about a participatory-activist research project with young people.”
Dr. Nichols (she now has her PhD) had just returned to Peterborough, the city where she was raised, and a mutual friend introduced her to Walter Johnstone, executive director of the city’s Youth Emergency Shelter. “We chatted, and saw some real lines of convergence between what he wanted to do at the shelter and what I was proposing.” Read more...