About the workshop
This workshop presents strategies to engage young people in the evaluation process. The presenters will briefly discuss best practices from the literature, but the main focus of the workshop will be reflections from the field. Each presenter will share successful and unsuccessful strategies they have used when engaging young people. Attendees will be encouraged to share their own experiences during the latter half of the workshop.
Presenter Bios
Mardi Daley, B.A. is an entrepreneur, engagement advisor, facilitator and certified Peer Specialist working in youth mental health and homelessness in Toronto. Working from the lens of lived experience, Mardi collaborates on community-based research projects to support by-youth for-youth resources, training, inclusion and engagement. Her areas of interest include youth employment, peer support and ethical youth engagement. Since 2015, Mardi has co-authored and created many resources related to these areas and has worked with the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), LOFT Community Services, Toronto Alliance to End Homelessness, Making the Shift, MLSE Launchpad and many others.
John Ecker (he/him) is a Research Manager with Dr. Stephen Hwang’s team at MAP Centre for Urban Health Solutions and is also a Senior Researcher at the Canadian Observatory on Homelessness. He holds a PhD in Psychology with a focus on community-based research and evaluation. Over the past 10 years, he has worked with a number of different organizations in the housing and homelessness to support their research and evaluation activities. His primary research interests include Housing First, community integration, and supports for the 2SLGBTQ+ community.
Mel Lusted is a member of the Scholars with Lived Experience Network (LivEX). She’s a Research Associate on the Building from Experience (BfE) Project at the Social Change Lab and the Research Manager on the Housing First for Youth (HF4Y) project at the Canadian Observatory on Homelessness (COH). She holds a degree in Gender and Women’s Studies and in Sociology with a specialization in Criminology and Socio-Legal Studies. She also has a Social Service Worker (SSW) diploma and a certificate in Knowledge Mobilization. She has lived and work experience in the related areas of housing and homelessness, gendered violence, poverty, and criminalization. Mel’s committed to participatory research and her community. In her spare time, she can be found spending time with her kids, and enjoying nearby trails.
About the MAP Evaluation Series
Our Evaluation Series aims to build on our core principles – street-level solutions, policy impact, training and community partnership – to build evaluation capacity. We convene community agencies and researchers around the country interested in learning about different evaluation and developing evaluation skills.
All sessions are facilitated by individuals with academic or applied evaluation expertise, and are available free-of-charge via Zoom.
If you’d like to learn about future Evaluation Series workshops, please join our mailing list by writing to Alix.Freiler@unityhealth.to.