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I am a part-time instructor and PhD candidate in the Faculty of Social Work. Within the Waterloo Region community, I work as a counsellor and reintegration worker. I completed a Bachelor of Arts degree in Legal Studies at the University of Waterloo in 2011 and a Master of Social Work degree at Laurier in 2015.
My body of work serves to:
- Strengthen social service program delievery models to improve employment outcomes for marginalized and criminalized populations;
- Stimulate collective well-being and community-based economic development initiatives; and,
- Support the capacity and leadership of human service organizations.
My research focuses on organizational development in human service organizations with the goal of increasing collective well-being, social innovation (including entrepreneurial activities), and community-based approaches for restoring well-being and repairing harm.
I've spent over a decade allying with marginalized and equity-seeking groups to do applied research, program evaluations, and community economic development work. I partner with a wide range of organizations from grassroots non-profit organizations to the Canadian federal government to secure funding to establish sustainable initiatives. It is critically important to implement initiatives that value marginalized and criminalized groups.
For women exiting prisons, finding employment is extremely challenging due to scarcity of financial resources while experiencing inequities such as chronic unemployment, poverty, and homelessness. Combating these inequities requires creating pathways and policies that support women to overcome these barriers. As women should have access to initiatives that directly address these social inequities, for my PhD dissertation I am exploring how social enterprise programs (SEPs) constructed as an employment initiative can combat these root causes of crime. My qualitative study includes interviews, focus groups with an arts-based project, and a constructivist grounded theory analysis. Building SEPs as an employment initiative can promote social welfare development by sparking social policy discussions about how to better reintegrate women back into our communities. Innovating evolved policies requires us to embrace a reality where just and equitable outcomes are possible for women who have been imprisoned.
- Ontario Graduate Scholarship 2022-2023 ($15,000)
- Mitacs Accelerate Award 2021-2022 ($30,000)
- Dean of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies PhD Dissertation Award 2021-2022 ($2,380)
- Award Winner – Most Implementable Project, How to Change the World International Competition
- Shankar Yelaja Memorial Scholarship, 2021 ($765)
- President's Graduate Scholarship, 2020 ($3,000)
- Lieutenant Governor's Community Volunteer Award for Students, 2011
- SK504: Research Methods in Social Work Practice
- SK615: Research Analysis in Social Work Practice
- SK668: Social Work Practice with Survivors of Trauma
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