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The Students Commission of Canada Annual Report 2010
The Students Commission
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Contents
THE STUDENTS COMMISSION: .....................................................................3
THE YEAR IN REVIEW .......................................................................................3 NATIONAL HIGHLIGHTS ........................................................................................3 STUDENTS COMMISSION REACH ........................................................................................3 THE CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE FOR YOUTH ENGAGEMENT...........................................3 YOUTH LAUNCH – NUTANA COLLEGIATE INSTITUTE, SASKATOON, SK ....................3 THE CENTRE FOR RESEARCH ON YOUTH AT RISK – ST. THOMAS UNIVERSITY .......4 NATIONAL PROGRAMMING ...................................................................................4 LOONATIC PERSPECTIVES BOOK LAUNCH.......................................................................4 INFLUENCE IN ACTION ........................................................................................................5 THE YOUNG DECISION MAKERS NETWORK ....................................................................5 YOUTH ADVISORY COMMITTEE AND THE YOUNG ADULT LEADERSHIP TEAM........ 6 THIS IS CANADA ................................................................................................................... 7 UNITE & IGNITE CONFERENCE.......................................................................................... 7 THE NATIONAL SUMMER EMPLOYMENT PROGRAM ..................................................... 7 REGIONAL PROGRAMMING....................................................................................8 PROJECT PEACE.................................................................................................................. 8 UNIFIED MINDS: YOUTH ACTION NETWORK ................................................................. 9 YOUTH ASSEMBLY ON GAMBLING..................................................................................... 9 THE HYPE CONFERENCE................................................................................................ 10
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The Students Commission: the year in review
2010 at The Students Commission (SC) was filled with many highlights and accomplishments, and brought us one year closer to our 20th anniversary! Here is a look back at some of our project highlights for the year:
National Highlights
Students Commission reach
This year we:
• Connected with more than 36,300 youth
• Delivered over 420 workshops across the country
• Trained 1200 adults, through consultations with 134 organizations
And both youth and adult partners contributed:
• Over 3650 volunteer hours
The Centre of Excellence for Youth Engagement
The Centre of Excellence for Youth Engagement (CEYE) partners with a diverse network of Canadian health, social, youth and research organizations to establish best practices for meaningfully engage youth. To this end, The Centre aims to identify, document, build and implement models of effective practice in youth engagement.
This year, through growing partnership and collaboration The Centre has accomplished much. Some high points include: the continued weekly calls, a national meeting with partners, the completion of the Influence in Action curriculum.
Youth Launch – Nutana Collegiate Institute, Saskatoon, SK
Youth Launch, a longtime partner of the Students Commission, continued to provide human resources within Nutana Collegiate Institute as part of the Integrated School Linked Services Team. They took the lead on the Daily Engagement Program in the student lounge – Room 106 – providing support to students during the mornings as part of the schools breakfast program and over the lunch hour providing a place to build relationships and connect to activities in and out of the school.
The Students Commission is a charitable organization that, since 1991, has been dedicated to providing positive opportunities for youth and supporting them as equal Canadian citizens. We believe that youth engagement and youth-adult partnership can drastically change a young person’s life. Research has proven that young people who are engaged in meaningful activities, not only build skills, but broaden their understanding of issues, develop new perspectives and gain valuable experiences.
Such opportunities not only create beneficial health and social outcomes for the young person, but impact their family, peers and/or social group. With supportive adult allies, youth are better enabled to initiate change in their communities, their schools, and beyond. Using our knowledge of youth engagement and guided by our Four Pillars: Respect, Listen, Understand and Communicate™, we have been able to encourage and sustain partnerships between youth and organizations as we all move forward.
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Building renovations at Nutana have allowed Youth Launch to move to a permanent office space in the student lounge! From this new space they participate in the Community School Council with students, school staff and parents to inform administration on decision-‐making issues within the school community.
The Centre for Research on Youth at Risk – St. Thomas University
The Students Commission (SC) was very excited to welcome The Centre for Research on Youth at Risk as our partner at St. Thomas University in New Brunswick. With this office serving as our eastern hub we are looking forward to growing the SC in Atlantic Canada.
The Centre for Research on Youth at Risk and The Students Commission, through its work with The Centre of Excellence for Youth Engagement, have collaborated on several key proposals for 2011 and will move forward in the new year.
National Programming
Loonatic Perspectives Book Launch
In the summer we launched the new SC book, Loonatic Perspectives. Written by our Executive Director, Stoney McCart, along with our Art Director, Todd Ward, the book chronicles the journey of the two passions of our director: engaging and supporting young people across Canada and observing loons who have made a home on an old swimming raft near Georgian Bay, Ontario. The fundraiser book launch was an enormous success, bringing together staff, board members, family, friends and the SC community to raise close to $8,000.00 through ticket and book sales, a 50/50 draw, and a silent auction.
“Two of the many gifts that have graced my life have been the joy of working with young people from across Canada and the joy of a pair of loons nesting on an old swimming raft smack in front of our cabin in a place called Go Home Bay. This book celebrates these two worlds and the shifts in perspectives and understanding that occur when one is offered the privilege of viewing life unfolding from such a close and intimate place. Moments and ideas, loons and
people, explore the patterns that connect the disconnected: the pattern of a girl’s shirt, the feathers on a loon’s back. “
- Loonatic Perspectives, by Stoney McCart and Todd Ward
The Centre for Youth at Risk
St. Thomas established the Centre for Research in 1998, since that time they have been active in research in the areas of youth justice, crime prevention, children and youth at risk, and children’s rights.
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Influence in Action
We developed and are now implementing the Influence in Action program as a pilot project to 30 schools throughout Canada. With help from our partners and funding secured from Health Canada this evidence-‐based peer influencer program is in the schools now.
Influence in Action is a 10-‐week program that provides two days of critical thinking training to a diverse group of young people identified by their peers as influential. In the training these peer influencers are introduced to the latest information and research on such topics as health, brain development, salt, sugar, smoking, cannabis and alcohol use. The aim is to encourage them to use critical thinking skills to make healthy informed decisions and in turn role model those behaviours to the peers they influence. Though many topics are covered there is a focus on cannabis and promoting harm reduction.
In 2010 we were able to:
• Revise and complete a 3-‐day Train the Trainer training manual, and a 2-‐day Youth Influencer training manual
• Implement the program and training in 15 schools, nationally through our partnerships
• Develop and disseminate a website of resources to sustain the program.
We look forward to continuing to implement Influence in Action across Canada during the 2011 school year.
The Young Decision Makers Network
“Where are young people when decisions are being made?”
The year was undoubtedly a great one for the Young Decision Makers (YDM) Network. The body of youth, young adults and adult allies continued recruiting interested Canadians to ensure youth voice is present at decision-‐making tables across the country.
• In February, YDM held its largest national conference to date with approximately 115 participants.
• In Match, the Students Commission and Town Youth Participation Strategies (TYPS) used the YDM Model in March to get over 250 youth to make recommendations on their topics of interest such as homelessness and the environment.
• In April, Ontario's Ministry of Health Promotions contracted the provincial YDM members to advise them on topic of youth gambling and co-‐addictions.
• In November, the YDM Network and model were used again at the Healthy Young People Engaged (HYPE) conference in Saskatoon.
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What's most exciting is that recommendations and ideas from these and other conferences have led to more youth-‐led programs across the country. For instance, a YDM conference planning team is currently underway organizing YDM's 2011 conference in Iqaluit, Nunavut! The Youth Planning team collaboratively produced a promotion video from youth in various parts of the country, all long distance.
As for 2011, the Young Decision Makers Network, its innovative model, its tools and most of all, its diverse and energetic members look foward to working with more community organizations, youth serving agencies and government departments to ensure youth are recognized as stakeholders when it comes to decision and policy making in Canada.
Be sure to check http://ydm.engagementcentre.ca regularly for ways to be involved with the YDM Network!
Youth Advisory Committee and The Young Adult Leadership Team
The Youth Advisory Committee and the Young Adult Leadership Team are national tobacco control advisory groups of volunteers spread across the country that works with Health Canada to raise awareness amongst Canadians about the effects of smoking. The YAC & YLT are dedicated to raising awareness about smoking by facilitating projects that encourage discussions around tobacco on a community and national level.
Highlights from the year:
• New member recruitments
• Quarterly newsletters
• Monthly teleconferences
• YAC Community Action Projects
• YLT National Social Smoking Poster Contest
There 30 youth members between the two committees, all between the ages of 14-‐24. Each member is involved with networks of youth, many of whom are already promoting tobacco control in their own communities, and providing opportunity for hundreds of youth to potentially be involved in the project.
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This is Canada
“We are honoured by the support we have received and we look forward to continuing to work together, youth and adults, Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal to help create change for children and youth in Canada! Meegwitch!”
Pytor Hodgeson and the This is Canada Team
This is Canada, initially thought up by young Aboriginal leaders, is an idea to connect Aboriginal youth with non-‐Aboriginal youth and help build bridges of intercultural understanding to demonstrate how by standing together, youth can foster citizenship, civic memory, civic pride, and respect for core democratic values grounded in our shared Canadian history. Originally entered in the Pepsi Refresh Everything Challenge, the idea placed 5th out of 73 ideas trying to secure funding.
This Is Canada brings together youth, young adults and adult allies who want to address the inequities facing Aboriginal children and youth in Canada by talking, sharing and learning. We are excited to see This Canada turn from an idea into action in 2011!
Unite & Ignite Conference
For the first time in the history of both organizations, TYPS-‐ Youth Centres Canada and The Students Commission, partnered to host the first annual Unite & Ignite conference. The joint conference was an opportunity for over 200 young people and adults from across Canada to gather and take part in capacity building workshops while sharing the amazing work they were doing in their own communities with other youth groups and centres. Using the Young Decision Makers Model, the youth, young adults and adult allies discussed issues, such as homelessness, substance abuse and healthy living, and created a final report with a series of recommendations.
We are very grateful for the contribution of all the participants as these recommendations helped shape the work and focus of the Students Commission for 2010.
The National Summer Employment Program
Each summer the Students Commission leads the National Summer Employment Program. Working with local partner organizations, the Students Commission hires, trains, and supports young people to work in local community-‐based organizations. In 2010 we had 18 young people participate in the Summer Employment Program with strong support from our partner organizations.
In 2010, summer youth staff and their adult allies from our partners were able to attend a three-‐day Summer Employment Training at the Geneva Park YMCA
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Conference Centre in Orillia, Ontario. There were several goals that were accomplished through the face-‐to-‐face training:
• As part of Summer Employment Program all staff take part in a national project and staff and their adult allies were trained in the Influence in Action model, as well as how to implement the model in their communities;
• Staff, both youth and adults, were provided with an increased sense of confidence by sharing their goals and expectations (of the organizations, partners, and youth) for the summer national project
• Each partner was provided the opportunity to share information about their individual organizations, local issues and the work being done in their communities;
• To provide and opportunity for team development and relationship building to develop meaningful and sustaining relationships preparedness for the rest of the summer employment program.
The National Summer Employment Program was a success with the support from; Allied Youth (PEI), Alta Care (AB), Finaly (NFL), iHuman (AB), The Ma Mawi Wi Chi Itata Centre (MB), Meadow Lake Tribal Council (SK), Regional Multicultural Youth Centre (ON), St. Thomas University (NB), YNOT (ON), and Youth Launch-‐ The Students Commission (SK)
Regional Programming
Project PEACE
Project PEACE is a prevention initiative that has been run in partnership with the Toronto Police Service’s Community Mobilization Unit and Community School Liaison Officers since 2005. There are three main components to the project:
• The Project PEACE youth group;
• Gun and gang awareness workshops facilitated by an experiential young person and a police officer;
• And “follow-‐up” programs targeted to the specific needs of schools, to sustain the positive impact our workshops had, as reported by our yearly evaluations.
Project PEACE completed its final year of funding from the National Crime Prevention Centre, with a grand total of 2,063 workshops delivered to 61,890 youth over its three-‐year funding period. The project was also able to leverage, in total, 1.4 million dollars of financial and in-‐kind resources from its partners.
The workshops are continuing with the support of the Toronto Police Service and the Toronto District School Board and the Toronto Catholic District School Board in the 2010-‐2011 school year.
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The Project PEACE youth group has also had a successful year sustaining their weekly meetings and planning community events. In 2010 they were able to organize and host: a YMCA day, a krump dance workshop, a talent show, their 2nd annual holiday toy drive, and support the events of community partners and organizations.
PEACE ended the year strong with a donation of $10.000 from CIBC, and many exciting new opportunities for the New Year ahead including a new video, more facilitation trainings, and more follow up programming in schools.
Unified Minds: Youth Action Network
The City of Saskatoon CDRR Office partnered with Youth Launch-‐ The Students Commission to establish Unified Minds: Youth Action Network. The network is dedicated to involving young people in the promotion of cultural diversity and positive race relations in Saskatoon, SK.
Unified Minds has provided a fun, safe, open forum for youth to come together and share their voices to address race relation issues and to contribute to shaping the future of race relations in Saskatoon. The focus and goal of the Youth Action Network has been to build the potential of future leaders.
In 2010 the initiative increased the participation and leadership of youth in addressing the issues of racism and discrimination, youth engagement, and the promotion of civic participation via leadership training, citizenship, and the electoral process. The network promoted the idea that leadership can take many forms, from formal specific leadership sessions to the inherent leadership development that took place for the volunteers and participants involved in the planning, implementation and delivery either directly or indirectly in civic engagement.
United Minds facilitated leadership development, personal growth, career planning, volunteer training, board governance, traditional Aboriginal concepts of leadership and has engaged participants in a to spark interest in an ongoing leadership development into 2011.
Youth Assembly on Gambling
In April 2010, youth gathered from across Ontario to take part in a Youth Assembly on Gambling in Orillia, Ontario to discuss the concern of gambling and co-‐addictions in today’s society. The youth, who participated in this assembly used their unique experiences over the course of four days to become experts on addictions related topics that the assembly had focused on.
Some of these topics included; ‘gaming’ (video games, and internet), tobacco, alcohol, the Ontario Lottery Gaming Corporation, illicit drug trade, and sexual exploitation, all of which are associated with the gambling industry. During the assembly the participants went through the YDM Cycle, a decision making tool, to facilitate the learning, discussing, as well as the decision making and sharing. Through this process the participants were able present the action plans and educate their peers in different and creative ways.
New friendships were developed and youth able find themselves making connection with others from diverse culture from across Ontario. This assembly provided many young people the opportunity to not only to get
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involved to their society, but also to discover their own abilities and build upon their confidence.
The HYPE Conference
The How Young People Engage (HYPE) Conference engaged 145 youth, 16 young adults, and 66 adults from across Saskatchewan. The event connected young people with other youth who were taking leadership roles in their communities. adults who want to support them, and policy-‐makers to help create change. The Ministry of Education, The Saskatoon Prevention Institute, and Saskatoon Health Region funded the event.
The conference also:
• Modeled youth engagement processes like youth facilitation, community building activities, and youth-‐adult partnerships.
• Introduced participants to youth engagement tools like the Young Decision Maker’s Model, the Engagement Framework, and Adult Ally training.
• Provided school and community groups with the opportunity to create their own plans for self, social, and system-‐level action that will address issues affecting their community while enhancing authentic youth engagement in schools, communities, organizations, and government.
• Show cased youth projects and groups that have been creating positive change around health, education, and social issues in their school sand communities throughout the previous year(s).
With a strong follow up process in place, opportunities will be provided for past participants to influence and contribute to the 2011 HYPE Conference.
