While it may feel as though some of the most extreme challenges faced by youth are always 鈥渁 world away,鈥� the sad truth is those challenges are a shared reality for far too many young people in every corner of the globe.
AV俱乐部鈥檚 Michael Ungar would like to see that come to an end.
The professor of social work, co-director or the Resilience Research Centre and former clinician is the scientific director of a new Government of Canada Network Centre of Excellence 鈥� Knowledge Mobilization (NCE-KM) Initiative, called the Children and Youth in Challenging Contexts (CYCC) Network.
The $1.6 million network has global reach, and will help bring together knowledge from organizations around the world to better understand how to help CYCCs.
At AV俱乐部 alone, Dr. Ungar is working with Shelly Whitman, director of the Child Soldiers Initiative; David Black, director Centre for Foreign Policy Studies; and Patrick McGrath, lead investigator of the Centre for Research on Family Health, which operates the Strongest Families program at the IWK Health Centre.
鈥淥ur groups had complementary interests in CYCCs, but the way we approach those groups is different,鈥� says Dr. Ungar. 鈥淲e noticed we all had access to innovative practices that helped kids, but that knowledge wasn鈥檛 necessarily shared.鈥�
Together they secured an NCE-KM grant and have started building the network to include upwards of 50 similar organizations around the world to share and communicate knowledge and best practices.
Getting groups to talk and share
鈥淎 child鈥檚 psychological and social problems are not caused simply by something inside them 鈥� they鈥檙e shaped by the social context they live in and their social determinants of health,鈥� explains Dr. Ungar. 鈥淚t鈥檚 just so senseless more isn鈥檛 being done for these children and youth. The more we can address the needs of CYCCs, the more we can understand how to intervene and see a social benefit as they grow up.鈥�
There are many similarities between children鈥檚 experiences around the world, and many different groups that work to support them: from large organizations like UNICEF and UNESCO to AV俱乐部 projects like the Resilience Research Centre and the Child Soldiers Initiative to even smaller local groups. The problem is these groups rarely talk to each other.
鈥淭here is incredible potential to share information, innovation and best practices across the network,鈥� says Dr. Ungar. 鈥淥ur job is to facilitate the connections, not just the gathering, but to pull knowledge up from communities and push it out. That鈥檚 where we need to get creative in employing our ideas.鈥�
Getting knowledge shared globally is not an easy task for the NCE-KM.
鈥淗ow do you convey knowledge and practices to remote communities where they don鈥檛 have the resources, capacity or support in these less formal settings?鈥� asks Dr. Ungar. 鈥淭here are groups working in various local communities who know how to take what they know naturally and embellish it in ways we haven鈥檛 thought of, so we need to harness the natural and practical knowledge of these groups. For example, similar art-based interventions are happening around the world and are working, but haven鈥檛 been verified scientifically. The network can help facilitate these conversations.鈥�
Thinking long term
He hopes the network will help create some methodological innovation for the knowledge mobilization field and get communities and groups to adopt innovative approaches to helping CYCCs, making universities, NGOs and their outreach more relevant to communities where there鈥檚 not a lot of capacity to implement programming.
鈥淲e need to think long-term,鈥� explains Dr. Ungar. 鈥淪o much social policy right now isn鈥檛 being informed by good research and good thought, which is funny, considering how it鈥檚 funded.鈥�
He points to his and two other recent NCE-KM grants going to projects focused on children and youth issues as a good step forward and good investment.
Dr. Ungar says he still feels like a clinician and community worker. 鈥淚t鈥檚 nice to feel like you鈥檙e making the world a bit better. It might be na茂ve, but to me, it makes the world seem a little more whole. Besides, we don鈥檛 have a television show to make social work sexy. Our work will at least bring us some attention.鈥�