Maximum City

In my role as Strategist & Engagement Specialist at Maximum City, I worked at the intersection of urbanism and education, collaborating with cities, schools, and nonprofits to build integrated and stronger connections—between people, to places, and across decisions that affect them.

 

On our small team of child- and youth-friendly experts and IAP2-trained facilitators, I worked with clients to identify how to best engage & build consensus with community groups through consultation, needs assessments & service mapping.  I had a role in facilitating dialogue & feedback from projects with 10 to 10,000 participants using various tools & engagement methods. I facilitated municipal engagement plans for heritage planning, regional parks, and economic development with the City of Toronto and the City of Vaughan, as well as multimodal stakeholder engagement plans for strategic planning with large District School Boards in Durham, Halton, & York Region.​

I applied immersive education methods for involving children & youth in city-building & research through program delivery of our in-house March Break/Summer Camps, as well as the Global Urban Citizens exchange program, with partners University of Toronto Schools, Carl Schurz School (Frankfurt), Waterfront Toronto, the Bentway, & Indigenous Elder Cat Criger.

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I was proud to lead the bid for the City of Orillia’s first Youth Strategy, which focused on municipal & regional service provision for ages 10-29, including survey design, service mapping, data collection & analysis, strategic planning & reporting. This included the recruitment & training of a Youth Research Team to gather youth perspectives & encourage future engagement in the municipality.

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Significantly to the work, I developed a strong foundation in IAP2 engagement focusing on Indigenous, Child, and Human Rights.

• I engaged alongside staff & trustees to advance the anti-oppression work of the Durham District School Board by highlighting a focus on Indigenous and Human Rights in the final Multi-Year Strategic Plan.

• I explored the impact of Major Sporting Events on global cities while working for the Centre for Sport and Human Rights, designing & piloting two international multi-city surveys for ages 8-19 alongside city leads & partners, while also assisting with an ArcGIS dashboard to support child rights benchmarking.

• I co-led research & training on child rights & participation with clients with a focus on the UN Child Rights Convention & our in-house approach to child-friendly cities.

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Deliverables:

• Project & Program Management (Work Plans, Program Delivery)

• Engagement Materials (Slide Decks, Engagement Plans, Facilitator Toolkits, Youth Research Team, Survey & Report Designs)

• Data Analysis & Reporting Tools (ArcGIS dashboards, Strategic Plans & Reports, What We Heard Webinars)

• Training (Child Rights, Child & Youth Participation, IAP2)