Robert Haché, vice-president research & innovation, and Lorne Sossin, dean of Osgoode Hall Law School, are co-hosting the event, which takes place from 12 to 2pm in Room 1014, Ignat Kaneff Building, Osgoode Hall Law School, Keele campus. Everyone is welcome to attend the free celebration, but an RSVP is requested. You can RSVP or call Lia Cavaliere at ext. 33782. Light refreshments will be provided.

The panel features Osgoode Hall Law Professors Trevor Farrow, Giuseppina D’Agostino, Dayna Scott and Stepan Wood. Each professor will deliver a short presentation on the panel theme “Celebrating Community Engagement”.

Farrow will discuss the dilemma faced by low income Canadians who find themselves unable to access the justice system. His presentation will discuss the various research initiatives that are designed to look at the complex problems associated with accessing justice and access to legal services, as well as the related problem of not providing meaningful access to legal services in today's complex and pluralistic societies.

Trevor Farrow

��Many low income Canadians find themselves unable to access the justice system, says Farrow. Courtrooms are filled with litigants who struggle to navigate the complex demands of law and procedure – often without representation by counsel. Early and effective resolution is central to avoiding the clustering and escalation of legal problems.�� However, Farrow posits, a lack of knowledge about how to seek help, coupled with a pervasive sense of powerlessness, limits meaningful action for those who need it most. The most advanced justice system in the world is a failure if it does not ultimately assist in providing justice to the people it is meant to serve, he says. A number of stakeholders have a direct or indirect connection to the issue of access to legal services, including the bench, the bar, the academy, governments, NGOs, the private sector and the public.��

Speaking in her capacity as founder and director of IP Osgoode, Osgoode Hall Law School’s flagship Intellectual Property (IP) and Technology Program, D’Agostino will outline three initiatives she spearheaded through IP Osgoode, along with their promises and challenges, to assist the University in playing a more active role in the complex IP and technology research communities in Canada and around the world. ��

Giuseppina D’Agostino

She will discuss the IP & Technology Intensive Program piloted in the Fall of 2011, which provides students with on-site research opportunities in government, industry and expert organizations in IP and technology; the Ontario Centres of Excellence and IP Osgoode Innovation Clinic, a needs-based innovation-to-market legal clinic staffed by volunteer law students piloted in 2011-2012; and the first blog of its kind, the IPilogue, promoting evidence-based research and showcasing new and unexplored viewpoints to public policy discussions.

Engaged scholarship implies a different set of relationships and expectations as between a community and a university researcher. For legal scholars, these can be even more complicated dynamics. In this short presentation, Scott will share some of the tensions encountered in a four-year research partnership with the Health and Environment Community of the Aamjiwnaang First Nation. The project explored questions of environmental justice stemming from the Band's experience of chronic pollution emanating from Sarnia's nearby Chemical Valley. Scott and the research team employed participatory action research techniques and arts-based methods such as PhotoVoice, to learn from and with community members, including youth.

Dayna Scott

Wood will focus on the challenges and opportunities surrounding community-engaged research in relation to various research projects affiliated with 91��ɫ's Institute for Research & Innovation in Sustainability (IRIS). His presentation will look at research on local community empowerment in water governance in developing world megacities, community members' perceptions of international corporate social responsibility standards in Colombia and Canada, and University-community collaboration on sustainable furniture design for the new Centre for Green Change in the Jane-Finch community.

Stepan Wood

Following the presentations, visitors will have an opportunity to engage with the panelists. Osgoode Hall’s research celebration is part of an ongoing series of events that highlight interesting and innovative research underway at 91��ɫ. For more information on each of the presenters and other research underway at the law school, visit the website.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

The post Osgoode law profs examine community engagement at Research Celebration appeared first on Research & Innovation.

“This agreement enhances collaboration for researchers at 91��ɫ and Southlake,” said Robert Haché, 91��ɫ vice-president research & innovation. “By signing this agreement, 91��ɫ and Southlake are taking steps to streamline our efforts and maximize our resources to promote greater efficiency of the ethics review process.”

Pat Clifford, director of research at Southlake, echoed Haché’s sentiment and said he��is encouraged by the agreement, as it will lay the groundwork for Southlake to work with 91��ɫ on additional collaborative research projects.

“As Southlake transitions to a ministry-designated teaching and research facility, our relationships and collaborative efforts with our academic partners will become increasingly important,” said Clifford. “This agreement is illustrative of our commitment to advancing our academic and research agenda, and I’m thrilled at the prospect of being able to free up resources so we can conduct additional research with more efficient and less redundant process.”

As part of this agreement, only one board of record will exist for any study conducted at either institution and it will be either the 91��ɫ Research Ethics Board or the Southlake Research Ethics Board depending on the location where the majority of the work will be conducted and/or the��home institution of the majority of the researchers.

As the board of record, Southlake’s Research Ethics Board and the 91��ɫ Research Ethics Board may approve, reject, propose modifications to, put on hold or terminate a research study at its sole discretion.

For more information, contact Alison Collins-Mrakas, 91��ɫ's senior manager & policy adviser, research ethics, at acollins@yorku.ca,��or ext. 55914.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

��

The post 91��ɫ and Southlake sign agreement on ethics approval appeared first on Research & Innovation.

Graduate students Shannon Roberts, Nancy��Latoszewski Greyeyes and Ilse Gudiño, candidates in 91��ɫ’s Master of Fine Arts (MFA) program in choreography and dance dramaturgy, premiere new choreographies for ensembles in Temenos. The show, performed by professional and pre-professional dancers, runs Feb.��15 to 17 in the Sandra Faire & Ivan Fecan Theatre at��the Keele campus.

Shannon Roberts. Photo by��David Hou

The Greek word temenos refers to a piece of land cut off from common use, often dedicated as a place for worship. Historically, the proscenium stage has been regarded as a space reserved for particular users and dedicated to expressing the meanings that infuse our bodies and relationships.

As well as addressing the concept of the stage as a special site, the three emerging choreographers build on the idea of the dancing body itself as temenos – simultaneously separated from society’s imposed meanings, and infused with individual sources of meaning for each artist.

“Their dances focus on navigating the proscenium stage as a site for researching the body’s memories and cultural constructions,” said Professor Darcey Callison, the production’s artistic director. “From delving into the historical roots of flamenco, to exploring a family narrative of coal miners in Pennsylvania, to challenging the complexity of the male gaze, these choreographers investigate the proscenium theatre as temenos: a theatrical space that frames these works in order to make visible the body as a conduit for memories and social conditions that permeate their choreography.”��

Fusing modern dance with her athletic background, Shannon Roberts incorporates Bollywood, ballet, jazz, modern, hip hop, figure skating and flying trapeze into her work. Her choreography is inspired by social issues and the people, artwork and cultures she has experienced in her travels around the world.��������������������������

������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������

Roberts’ work, A Way of Seeing, is a discourse between Edvard Munch’s painting Woman in Three Stages and writer John Berger’s influential book Ways of Seeing. Investigating how a woman’s experience is informed through youth, sexuality and aging, this trio explores a sensual physical language that frames the private experience as public display.

��Ilse Gudiño Barthold. Photo by David Hou

In her piece, In the Marrow: A��Crucial Journey, Ilse Gudiño Barthold explores the history of flamenco as cultural memory and personal expression. Four dancers and four live musicians bring to the stage this complex journey, from a dance form infused with cultural significance to a movement vocabulary that is both personal and contemporary.

Trained in flamenco dance in Madrid and Seville, Gudiño Barthold has been a member of the Esmeralda Enrique Spanish Dance Company since 1997 and has performed as a soloist and with other flamenco dancers across Canada and internationally.

In Valley of Coal, Nancy Latoszewski (Greyeyes) tells the story of her grandparents. Both her grandfathers were Pennsylvania coal miners, and her choreography charts memories of the challenges they faced and the personal sacrifices they made. This narrative choreography is Latoszewski’s way of exploring oral history through her work as a dance artist.

Nancy Latoszewski (Greyeyes). Photo by��David Hou

A former soloist with Feld Ballets NY, Latoszewski has also been a principal dancer with the Cleveland San Jose Ballet and Alberta Ballet. Her work has been performed at Nuit Blanche and by Ballet Jörgen, and she has also choreographed for film.

The Temenos program concludes with a structured improvisation created by the 91��ɫ Dance Ensemble’s (YDE) artistic director Holly Small in collaboration with the ensemble, and��performed by the 16 dancers and five musicians of the YDE.

For tickets, contact the Box Office at 416-736-5888.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

The post Emerging dance masters unveil new works appeared first on Research & Innovation.

The conference will take place on Inclusion Day, Jan. 18, from 11:30am to 8pm, at 280N 91��ɫ Lanes, Keele campus. Everyone is welcome to attend the free event.

This is the third annual Inclusion Day at 91��ɫ. Guest speakers will provide participants with internal and external community perspectives “that will no doubt enhance our path of continued learning��about the wealth that diversity brings,” says Noël Badiou, director of 91��ɫ’s CHR.

“Inclusion Day provides an occasion to highlight the diversity on our campus and the value and importance of ensuring that each and every member of our greater community, students, staff and faculty, is included in 91��ɫ's activities, whether in the classroom, during extracurricular events, or academic and administrative meetings,” says Badiou.

Left: Noël Badiou

This year's theme of "building allies for equity" is in keeping with CHR's goal of further enhancing the individual understanding of barriers faced by certain members of the 91��ɫ community with a view to exploring ways that we can help eliminate these barriers, he says.

“The key in creating a more equitable community is to further each of our individual understanding of the incredibly rich diversity of our community and be empowered with knowledge about how to value this diversity by being more inclusive, as well as appreciative and respectful of our differences. It is a tall order, but one that can be accomplished by having a growing number of partners and supporters within our community.”

Director of the City of Toronto’s Equity & Inclusion Office, Uzma Shakir will deliver the opening keynote address at noon, along with a panel comprised of 91��ɫ students. A host of talks will follow throughout the afternoon.

The first sessions will include 91��ɫ PhD psychology candidate Kaley Roosen (BSC Spec. Hons. ’07, MA ’09) and Access 91��ɫ discussing disability awareness: The Power of Language, and Professor Faisal Bhabha and second-year law student Adrienne Lipsey of Osgoode Hall Law School looking at the meaning of religious accommodation. The Aboriginal Student Association at 91��ɫ will host a workshop exploring notions of identity for Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal youth and the impact of gender roles and access to cultural resources in urban Aboriginal communities. 91��ɫ student Sana Siddiqui, an MSW student, will explore the historical and political roots of Islamophobia and its current manifestations through a variety of hands-on activities, video clips, case studies and interactive discussion. She will also offer strategies for building networks of allies against Islamophobia.

During the second round of sessions at 2:30pm, Jennifer Dalton (LLM ’06, PhD ’10), a visiting scholar with 91��ɫ’s Centre for Refugee Studies, will present “From Kelowna to Attawapiskat: Forging Aboriginal-Canada Alliances to Build Aboriginal Equity”. She will discuss the continuing inequities that plague Aboriginal communities across the country despite the Kelowna Accord, which sought to bridge the inequity gap. This interactive workshop will emphasize the need to forge positive alliances between Aboriginal communities and the government. Bobby Siu from 91��ɫ’s Equity Studies Department will address “Building Allies for Equity in the Workplace: Some Considerations for Persons with Disabilities”.

A third group of sessions will begin at 4pm, covering topics that look at the purpose of “voice” if no one is listening and relationships for creating change and inclusion. Ragini Sharma, a doctoral student in the Faculty of Education, will hold an interactive workshop Broadening the Vision, Deepening the Roots, from 4 to 5:15pm, where participants can talk about their experiences of religious diversity on campus and will be challenged to broaden their vision beyond an identity based solely on religion.

An evening reception with keynote speaker Tim McCaskell, a social justice advocate and author, will follow the final sessions.

For a full lineup of sessions and speakers, visit the Inclusion Day web page on the Centre for Human Rights website. To register, .

For more information, contact Nythalah Baker, CHR senior adviser, education & communications, at nythalah@yorku.ca or ext. 55682.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

The post Inclusion Day conference at 91��ɫ looks to build allies for equity appeared first on Research & Innovation.

During the next instalment of the McLaughlin College Lunchtime Talks, taking place today at noon, Osgoode Hall Law School Professor Stepan��Wood (left)��will argue that leverage is a source of responsibility where there is a morally significant connection between the company and a rights-holder or rights-violator, the company is able to make a contribution to ameliorate the situation. Wood will argue that it can do so at modest cost and the threat to human rights is substantial.

In such circumstances, posits Wood, companies have a responsibility to exercise leverage even though they did nothing to contribute to the situation. He argues that such responsibility is qualified, not categorical; graduated, not binary; context-specific; practicable; consistent with the social role of business; and not merely a negative responsibility to avoid harm but a positive responsibility to do good.

Wood teaches climate change law, environmental law and property law. He is editor-in-chief of the Osgoode Hall Law Journal and acting director of the Institute for Research and Innovation in Sustainability (IRIS). His research focuses on corporate social responsibility, sustainability, globalization, transnational private governance, voluntary standards, climate change and environmental law.

Wood is currently directing an interdisciplinary research project on the dynamics of interaction among transnational business governance initiatives in fields as diverse as accounting standards and sustainable forestry certification.��He is co-author with Stephen Clarkson of A Perilous Imbalance: The Globalization of Canadian Law and Governance (2010, shortlisted for the Donald Smiley award for best book on Canadian politics), co-editor of Climate Law and Developing Countries (2009) and co-editor of Environmental Law for Sustainability (2006). He is founder and co-chair of the Willms & Shier Environmental Law Moot for Canadian law schools.

Wood’s talk is hosted by the McLaughlin College Master’s Office. It will take place today from noon to 1:30pm in the McLaughlin Senior Common Room, 140 McLaughlin College. All talks are free and open to the public.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

The post McLaughlin talk looks at the human rights responsibilities of companies appeared first on Research & Innovation.

It was during this week, in the lead-up to today’s supernaturally inclined date of Friday the 13th, that I learned the similarity between believing in Bigfoot and believing in The One, wrote columnist Micah Toub in :

This somewhat unsettling information was delivered to me not by the Weekly World News, but by Ian McGregor, a 91��ɫ psychology researcher [Faculty of Health]. With assistance from his grad student , McGregor has been studying what those in his field call “compensatory conviction”. I had been curious to find out about the usefulness of pinning one’s romantic hopes and dreams on things like astrology, synchronicity and fate. As it turns out, there is some.

In his lab, McGregor has his guests perform activities and answer questions that are meant to put them in an anxious mood. He then asks them to rate their level of confidence that they’ve found, as he puts it, “their soul mate or the person they are meant to be with.”

When they were rattled, subjects consistently rated their current relationship higher on the magic scale, using their partner as a balm to ease anxiety about other matters.

“If you’re feeling uncertain about a particular domain in your life – economics or academics or family, for instance – you’ll find another domain to find certainty,” McGregor explained. “Relationships can become an attractive domain for irrational conviction.”

Similarly uncertain subjects, McGregor told me, also calm themselves by exaggerating beliefs in supernatural phenomena, like heaven and hell. And yeah, Bigfoot.

. . .

In hindsight, it seems somewhat silly, but according to McGregor, a certain amount of silliness can be a good thing. He actually called it an “optimal margin of illusion,” which will also be the title of my first album. “People have a lot of illusions to protect them from anxiety,” McGregor told me. “But sometimes, positive illusions can actually come true. Sometimes people eventually develop better relationships because of them.” In other words, if your belief in astrology makes you optimistic about your current love interest, that superstitious optimism might be the thing that turns the two of you into a scientific fact.

For those who place themselves firmly on the skeptical side when it comes to the universal energy flow’s influence on love, McGregor pointed out that this doesn’t mean you're immune to illusion. “People can delude themselves about how great their partner is and how great they are,” he said, adding that these people who put too much faith in the awesomeness of their own will can become equally out of touch with reality.

He went even further: “The personal confidence illusions can spin into narcissism, where the person is living in their own mind, leaving a wake of rubble behind them as they flex their grandiose muscles.”

Posted by Elizabeth Monier-Williams, research communications officer, with files courtesy of YFile – 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

The post Psychology Professor Ian McGregor explores links between anxiety and compensatory convictions appeared first on Research & Innovation.

Pregnant with her third child, she was conducting a series of interviews��as research for��the play, , on loss and how it is transformed, when she lost her son Ethan. “I was just struck by how I was immersed in this phenomena and living it at the same time,” she says. I'm Still Here was co-created with 91��ɫ nursing Professor Gail Mitchell and playwright Vrenia Ivonoffski.

Right: Christine Jonas-Simpson, holding the children's book she wrote, Ethan's Butterflies

Ethan was stillborn at 38 weeks – or, as Jonas-Simpson prefers to say, born still – causing a rent in the universe as she knew it. After the loud silence of her delivery, she remembers hearing a primal scream of agony, realizing some moments later it was coming from her.

Almost a decade later, Jonas-Simpson is about to premiere her third research-based documentary film, about how mothers and their families live with the loss of a child. The premiere will take place Sunday, May 15, from 1 to 3:30pm at the Fox Theatre, 2236 Queen St. E. in Toronto. Tickets are $25 per ticket with proceeds going to Bereaved Families of Ontario-Toronto. To buy tickets, call 416-440-0290 or e-mail info@bfotoronto.ca.

Enduring Love looks at the lives of four women, the agony of loss, the impact the death of their infant has had on them and their families and��how they learned to live with their loss. It also traces��the importance of recognizing their other children are also grieving, the continuing presence of their deceased child in their lives, the rituals they’ve developed and how they not only endured but have been transformed by their loss. Funded by��91��ɫ's��Faculty of Health and the Health Leadership & Learning Network: Interprofessional Education Initiative Fund, the documentary answers the research question, what is the meaning of living and transforming with loss for mothers who experience the loss of their baby?

As one woman in the film says of her family, it was a “seminal event in their lives”; there was a before and an after. The women make the point that many fail to realize that losing their baby, whether at 24 weeks gestation or several weeks after delivery, is a profoundly felt loss that changes, not only them, but their husbands and their children, forever. One of the universally hard moments for these women was going home from the hospital without their baby. It feels so unnatural, says Jonas-Simpson.

It was the experience of losing her own son that guided Jonas-Simpson’s research toward providing a body of arts-based research for others who experienced perinatal loss. She had often used music in her nursing practice and research, and then began incorporating art, drama��and film. “With grieving and loss it seemed appropriate to keep going with the arts.” Although, she��will write papers on her latest research, she believes presenting her findings with an art-based approach makes it more accessible and touches people in a way a research paper in a journal wouldn’t. “It’s a way of showing the human experience, rather than just telling,” she says.

Being a researcher, I looked at the literature to see what was out there. I was struck by how little there was out there in light of grieving and loss��about mothers’ lived experiences. My graduate student, Jennifer Noseworthy, and I are conducting a comprehensive literature review and we’ve only found a few qualitative studies focused on the human lived experience of perinatal loss.” And that moved Jonas-Simpson to conduct research and create resources for others like her.

Enduring Love is her third film. Her first was , while her second, is a short made from footage shot for��Enduring Love, which focuses on the surviving children. “These children have an incredible bond and relationship with the babies,” their siblings who’ve died. Jonas-Simpson recently gave a talk and showed Why Did Baby Die? at a��Women's Health and Mental Wellbeing Speakers Series��event at 91��ɫ.

Some of the children, as seen in Enduring Love, have drawn family portraits years later that have included their deceased siblings. “Grieving and loss isn’t always something we talk about openly, but it is experienced by many, if not all, of us,” says Jonas-Simpson. Even after the physical death, the relationship continues. “It’s still hidden. Perinatal loss is also disenfranchised in our society.” To help grieving children with the loss of a baby sibling, she also wrote the children's book .

Jonas-Simpson started talking about her own experience of losing Ethan, born with vibrant red locks, and how her other two sons, now 11 and 13, have integrated him into their lives as a way to help others. “The children integrate this loss very well,” she says. One of her children even wrote a letter to Ethan as a school assignment, asking if there are dinosaurs in heaven and if it hurt to die. The teacher may have been uncomfortable, but Jonas-Simpson says it’s important to talk about and to understand the continuing relationship following death.

Next, she is hoping to do research on children age three to 18 who are grieving a loss of a baby sibling. Children, she says, are often forgotten about, but they too grieve. “If we can be more open about grief and loss as a natural human experience and if we can begin in the schools with that,” it could be really helpful for the children, she says. She would also like to explore the common and��unique threads of grieving around the world.

For more information or to view or buy Jonas-Simpson’s films, visit the Faculty of Health’s Living and Transforming with Perinatal Loss website.

By Sandra McLean, YFile writer

Republished courtesy of YFile – 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

The post Professor Christine Jonas-Smith premieres film on families living with perinatal loss appeared first on Research & Innovation.

The report said it's estimated that roughly 65,000 young people are homeless or living in homeless shelters throughout the country at one time or another during a given year.

, associate dean of research and professional development in 91��ɫ's Faculty of Education, used to work in the youth homelessness sector in the '90s. He said the approach in Canada has remained much the same since — namely, the focus on provision of emergency services.

“The longer I’m involved in this issue, the more upset I am that we allow 15-, 16- and 17-year-olds to languish in emergency shelters rather than to provide them with better solutions and better options,” he said. He co-authored the report with , an associate professor in 91��ɫ’s department of anthropology, and researcher Tara Patton.

Gaetz noted that other countries, such as Australia and the U.K., have evolved approaches focusing on prevention and moving individuals out of homelessness and into housing. He said while emergency services are needed, the real emphasis should be on preventing young people from becoming and remaining homeless.

He said research in Canada is pretty consistent in showing that between 60 and 70 per cent of young people come from households where they’ve experienced physical, sexual or emotional abuse. Yet even in situations where they’re leaving households where they may have been abused, it doesn’t mean their relationship with all family members has soured, he noted.

Even though family conflict is probably at the core of the majority of youth homelessness, it doesn’t mean that those relationships are irreconcilable, Gaetz said. In certain cases, there may not be a history of abuse but perhaps family conflict which can often be addressed. That means more intensive support is needed for both the youngster and their family.

“If there’s conflict parents may not know what to do. There may be anger management issues that need working on; there may be mediation. There may also just need to be a cooling-out period.”

The report profiles the Family Reconnect program run by , which operates three shelters in the Toronto area and works with homeless and at-risk youth aged 16-24 to get them off the streets permanently.

The program provides youngsters with support through various channels, including counselling, to help get them on track to potentially return home or move into the community, ideally with family support.

Between 2005 and 2010, the program helped 376 clients. Among them, 62 per cent of youth became more actively involved with family members and 14.5 per cent reconciled with a family member after repairing a damaged relationship.

Parents are also able to benefit from the program.

Gaetz said it will require a unified approach from all levels of government to develop strategic responses to homelessness.

At the provincial level where funding is controlled for most service delivery, they recommend establishing an inter-ministerial working group that spans all sectors. They’re also asking municipal governments to develop strategic plans to address youth homelessness.

“I really believe that the knowledge is there about how to do this and, in many cases, the commitment is there to do things differently.”

also covered the report April 13.

Posted by Elizabeth Monier-Williams, research communications officer, with files courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

The post 91��ɫ's youth homelessness report covered by Canadian Press and QMI Agency appeared first on Research & Innovation.

Some 65,000 young people are homeless or at risk of homelessness across Canada. In Toronto, approximately 1,700 youth are on the streets on any given night, about half of them in emergency shelters.

Right: Report co-authors Daphne Winland (left) and Stephen Gaetz

“In Canada, we really need to radically reform our approach to youth homelessness,” says , associate dean of research in 91��ɫ’s Faculty of Education and co-author of the Family Matters report. “We need to be much more strategic in how we address the problem, and this means placing a greater emphasis on prevention, family reconnection and rapid re-housing efforts. This not only improves lives, it’s also more cost effective.”

Prevention programs, including family mediation and support for the development of healthy family relations, are likely to produce longer-lasting results and a quicker exit from the streets, according to the report. Such interventions, which cost about $7,000 a year per youth, make better financial sense than putting a young person in a shelter for a year at a cost of more than $20,000. Unfortunately, such programming is rare in the sector, it says.

One exceptional initiative that the report says should be scaled up and replicated is the Family Reconnect Program, run by Eva’s Initiatives in Toronto. The Family Reconnect Program offers youth and their families access to free individual and family counselling to help them understand the nature of family conflict and resolve or better mitigate family problems. As a result, many youth decide to go back home, while others go into independent housing, supported by their community or family.

“The shelter system provides critical services, but it should never be the only option,” says Rachel Gray, director of the National Initiatives Program at Eva’s Initiatives. Between 2005 and 2010, the Family Reconnect Program helped 376 clients: 62 per cent��of youth became more actively involved with family members; 14.5 per cent��reconciled with a family member after repairing a damaged relationship; and the housing situation improved for��more than��40 per cent��of participants.

The Family Matters report also details the success of national youth homelessness prevention programs overseas that could serve as models for Canada. In Australia, work is done with school and community-based services to engage young people and their families before youth become homeless. In the U.K., family mediation programs help move young people out of the shelter system and back with their families or their community in a safe and planned way.

Part of the challenge in Canada is that emergency shelters are largely designed to provide young people with protection from abusive family situations. While this focus on protection is essential, given that 60 to 70 per cent��of homeless youth flee households where they experienced physical, sexual or emotional abuse, the potential role of family or extended family members to help youth move on with their lives is largely ignored.

Left: According to the report,��prevention programs, including family mediation and support for the development of healthy family relations, are likely to produce longer-lasting results for homeless youth

“For many young people who become homeless, family still matters,” says report co-author , a professor in the Department of Anthropology at 91��ɫ. “Just because one comes from a household characterized by abuse, doesn’t mean that there are no healthy or redeemable relations within the family.”

Given the gaps in the current Canadian response to youth homelessness, Eva’s Initiatives is launching an online toolkit that will give youth service providers across the country detailed information about how to incorporate prevention strategies into existing programs.

However, much more remains to be done if Canada is truly committed to ending youth homelessness, the report says. It calls for concrete measures and increased funding at the national, provincial and municipal levels to make prevention integral to Canada’s response to youth homelessness.

The Family Matters report and executive summary are available online as��part of the Homeless Hub Research Report Series on the�� website.��The report, which includes detailed recommendations, also tells the personal stories of youth and families who have benefited from the Family Reconnect Program.

The Homeless Hub Research Report Series is a initiative based at 91��ɫ, highlighting the work of top Canadian researchers on homelessness. The goal of the research series is to take homelessness research and relevant policy findings to new audiences.

works with homeless and at-risk youth ages 16 to 24 to get them off the streets permanently. They operate three shelters in the Greater Toronto Area that house 114 youth each night.��Eva’s also operates the Family Reconnect Program, which works with young people in a protected environment to support their efforts to address family conflict in a way that helps them move forward in their lives.

By Janice Walls, media relations coordinator at 91��ɫ, and Micol Zarb,�� Media Relations at Eva’s Initiatives.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

The post Professors Gaetz and Winland: Family largely ignored in Canada's response to homeless youth crisis appeared first on Research & Innovation.

"If a child is bullied at home by his or her parents or siblings, they’re going to learn the patterns they need to learn about the use of power and aggression in relationships," says Debra Pepler [Distinguished Research Professor in psychology at 91��ɫ’s LaMarsh Centre for Child & Youth Research].

These "children who are morally disengaged tend to think that the other child is just deserving of it, that they’re not human. They really disregard that child’s basic rights."

Pepler, who works at 91��ɫ [Faculty of Health] and the in Toronto, co-founded the Promoting Relationships and Eliminating Violence Network.

She says that for most kids, bullying or being bullied are minor problems that pass with time. But 10 to 15 per cent require extra support, and chronic bullies need help from mental health experts.

Pepler found that "85 per cent of the time, we saw bullying in the schoolyard or in the classroom, other children are there, and they form the audience for bullying and they reinforce the child who is bullying."

Her findings show that chronic bullies are more likely to skip school, abuse substances, sexually harass others, use violence in romantic relationships and eventually get into crime.

"They don’t have that voice inside that says, ‘Is this a good idea, should I do this?’ They’re really willing to go along to keep their friends, to keep their status, and do all sorts of negative things when they’re exposed to peer pressure. If we wanted to identify and help those children who are going to cost society the most in terms of criminal behaviour . . . we would be looking at the children who are involved in high rates of bullying."

These kids "probably need mental health services, (and) they and their families need a lot of support around how to develop the social-emotional capacity for healthy relationships." Schools need to keep track of every occurrence of bullying and focus their resources on the chronic bullies, she says.

Combating the stigma against reporting bullying to adults requires re-educating both children and adults, Pepler says.

"Children have a responsibility to tell when it’s happening, either to (teachers) or to someone else, because it violates a child’s rights, to be bullied. A child who is bullied isn’t safe, and similarly a child who bullies others is really in need of help."

This approach also helps combat cyberbullying because "the children who are cyberbullying are the children who traditionally bully," Pepler says.

She says teaching math and literacy is different from teaching kids how to interact positively. "Two plus two always equals four, and Cat on the Mat always looks the same, but social-emotional development is hugely complex," she says.

Posted by Elizabeth Monier-Williams, research communications officer, with files courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

The post Professor Debra Pepler argues you can't just punish children who bully appeared first on Research & Innovation.