In communities across Canada, service navigation or system navigation has been identified as a barrier for youth success. Improving system navigation has the potential to address multiple interrelated gaps in social service systems and increase youth wellbeing, civic engagement, and academic and employment success.
However, not all service navigation tools are relevant to all communities and problems. Every community is unique, which means different strategies are needed in different contexts. One community may benefit from a service navigation strategy that would fail youth in another community.
We can improve service navigation by examining the specific barriers that exist and connecting them with strategies that communities can use to successfully address these barriers.
In this webinar we will share:
- The latest research into the key barriers facing youth in accessing supports
- How the Accessibility Matrix can be used to learn about the barriers in your own community
- The range of strategies that can be used to improve service navigation matched to each barrier
While this webinar is focused on improving service navigation for youth, the lessons learned are relevant across demographics.
Deepen Your Learning
- Read the Guide for Improving Youth Services Navigation, written by Lisa Attygalle and Kerry Yang
Speakers
Lisa Attygalle, Consulting Director, Community Engagement, Tamarack Institute
In her role at Tamarack, Lisa works with cities, organizations, collaboratives, and funders to build meaningful community-engaged processes. Over the last ten years, her work has focused on creating authentic engagement strategies and training staff teams, teaching and writing about innovative engagement methodologies, and facilitating collaborative processes to make decisions and work together to solve our most pressing issues. She cares deeply about shifting power, extending trust, and bring creativity to community change work. Lisa advocates for simplicity in structures, frameworks, and design and loves integrating arts-based practices in community initiatives.
Lisa comes to this work from the private sector where she worked at one of Canada's leading communications firms with clients in agribusiness, healthcare, financial services and technology. Hailing from Australia, Lisa also worked on major water infrastructure projects as the liaison between municipal government, engineering and the community.
Lisa’s other titles include Artist, Wife and Mum. On the side, Lisa is one of ten owners of Seven Shores Community Café in Waterloo, ON.
Kathe Rogers (she/her), Registered Social Worker, YouthREX
Kathe Rogers (she/her) is the Program Director at Youth Research & Evaluation eXchange (YouthREX). She is a registered social worker with extensive experience in communications, advocacy, public education, counselling, and community building, having supported a variety of projects across not-for-profit organizations and community-based initiatives.
Kerry Yang, Health Sciences Student & Associate Vice President of Municipal Affairs, McMaster University
Kerry is a second-generation Chinese-Canadian and a third-year health sciences student at McMaster University. Growing up in Northern Ontario, she often grappled with her cultural identity in the face of racism, discrimination, and a lack of representation. In high school, she created a program to provide cultural education opportunities and improve representation for BIPOC youth in the North. Through this project, she was connected to the Tamarack Institute where she worked on the service navigation guide, with the goal of connecting youth with services and opportunities to explore their communities and identities.