Coordinators
The Students Commission partners network. PDF version
This project is a partnership led by the Students Commission, a national youth organization and lead of the Centre of Excellence for Youth Engagement, with academic co-investigators and youth-serving organizations. This collaborative community- and academic-based leadership is based upon existing partnerships with the Students Commission and will ensure the interests of both community youth organizations and academics are represented. The partnership is multidisciplinary (psychology; community psychology; political and cultural psychology; child and youth care), including broad expertise (youth engagement; adult-youth partnerships; youth-engaged research; youth at-risk; youth volunteerism; youth facilitation; conflict resolution; cultural engagement; knowledge mobilization), and various contexts to explore (youth conferences; youth in governance; youth leadership; youth mentorship; youth in contexts of risk). This map describes the breadth of our partners.
The Students Commission is a national charitable organization committed to youth engagement and youth voice. It has led the Centre of Excellence for Youth Engagement, which is a non-incorporated, ongoing network of collaborators since 2000, and is therefore ideally, and uniquely suited to leading a connection stream, partnership development project. It has existing strong partnerships with Brock University, St. Mary’s University and Wilfrid Laurier University, the YMCA, Youth Launch, and many others. These organizations have been research partners for ten years, successfully acquired research funding, and completed many research projects. The project is lead by Stoney McCart, who is the Executive Director of the Students Commission and the Director of the Centre for Excellence in Youth Engagement.
Mr. Nishad Khanna has worked with the Centre of Excellence for Youth Engagement since 2002, having grown up in the youth facilitation program at Youth Launch, a core partner of the Centre. He has been involved in developing and implementing various youth programs, events and youth-engaged research with the Students Commission, organizational partners and academic partners. As research coordinator of the Centre of Excellence, he has a long history with the community-university partnerships we have developed over the past 10 years, as well as experience facilitating and coordinating youth participatory action research.
Mr. Pytor Hodgson has worked with the Centre of Excellence for Youth Engagement since its inception and has been involved in developing and executing over 150 youth conferences and projects with at least six other major youth organizations. It is a priority of the Students Commission and the partnering agencies to empower youth to become involved in research.
