HamOntYouth Gets to Work

What are barriers and challenges for youth (ages 14 to 29) to access employment in Hamilton.

Project Description: Hamilton’s Youth Strategy, informed by youth residents, identified access to employment and training as a priority. With objectives to increase employment, improve wages, and access to financial supports, the City of Hamilton must first better understand the barriers and challenges faced by young people. This project will work along City staff and the HamOntYouth Steering Committee to answer key questions about the employment and training needs of Hamilton youth.

City Staff: Jesse Williamson, Healthy and Safe Communities Department

Deliverables: Primary research, Secondary research

Project Partner: McMaster University, Semester in Residence

Location: City Wide

City Strategy Priority: Community Engagement and Participation, Healthy and Safe Communities, Economic Prosperity and Growth

Ideas to build networks to support individuals and communities during extreme weather events

How can we help build social capital in neighbourhoods facing barriers, to ensure people can support each other during climate-induced extreme weather events?

Project Description: Hamilton’s Climate Change Impact Adaptation Plan (CCIAP) is an action-oriented plan to minimize climate change impacts on residents and the community. Action 4.3 in the CCIAP is to “Establish buddy systems/help-your-neighbour programs to implement during extreme weather events.”

The focus of this project is to undertake research, including a municipal scan of efforts to identify best practices and key considerations for the development and implementation of ‘help-your-neighbour’ programs. More specifically, the City is interested in understanding best practices when these programs focus on neighbourhoods where there are higher concentrations of people and communities facing barriers. This includes the need to identify resources, tools and methods utilized in these programs to support effective neighbourhood networks of caring.

City Staff: Amy Angelo, Planning and Economic Development Department

Deliverables: Secondary research, design

Project Partner: McMaster University, Semester in Residence

Location: City Wide

City Strategy Priority: Community Engagement and Participation, Healthy and Safe Communities

Engaging Students on their Commute

How can the City create an effective outreach strategy for McMaster students to encourage sustainable travel to and from campus?

Project Description: McMaster University is part of the Smart Commute program which encourages employers to promote sustainable transportation for their worksites. Smart Commute would like to expand its engagement and program tactics to help engage McMaster students to use sustainable transportation to campus. A main Smart Commute tool is the Rideshark app which helps people find carpool rides to reach central employment hubs. This project challenge is to determine current carpool usage for students travelling to campus and potential barriers that may prevent this from being a successful engagement. The project shall also engage with students to review ways to encourage public transit or cycling as an option for medium or short commutes and to promote the programs McMaster University currently offers to students such as the transit and bike share passes.

The main deliverable for the project is to create an engagement strategy to promote the Smart Commute program at McMaster with the goal of being able to adapt this strategy in the future for Mohawk College and Redeemer University

City Staff: Miranda Floreano, Planning and Economic Development Department

Deliverables: Secondary research, policy paper, event

Project Partner: McMaster University, Semester in Residence

Location: City Wide

City Strategy Priority: Clean and Green, Healthy and Safe Communities

Promoting Healthier Attitudes towards Legal Substance Use

How can the City’s Public Health Services encourage healthier relationships with alcohol and cannabis among Hamilton post-secondary students??

Project Description: The City’s Public Health Services Division is interested in developing innovative health promotion programing to increase knowledge, change attitudes and beliefs, and promote healthier relationships with alcohol and cannabis among post-secondary students. This project will engage with post-secondary students since they are familiar with the matters that affect their lifestyles, what factors resonates with youth, and what should be considered towards potential solutions.

Through this project, students will review the literature on effective and innovative strategies that may encourage post-secondary students to develop healthier relationships with alcohol and cannabis, gather data from their fellow students to learn more about the local context and needs, and develop content which will help inform a communications strategy. Hamilton Public Health’s goal for the project results is to develop better alcohol- and cannabis-focused programming in the future that meet the needs of the City’s post-secondary communities.

City Staff: Malcolm Scott, Healthy and Safe Communities Department

Deliverables: Primary research, Secondary research, workshop/event

Project Partner: McMaster University, Semester in Residence

Location: City Wide

City Strategy Priority: Healthy and Safe Communities

Developing a Community Benefits Framework

What are existing actions being undertaken by the City of Hamilton that would fall under a Community Benefits Framework, and what more could be done if a Community Benefits Framework is adopted as a city-wide policy ?

Project Description: A Community Benefits Framework acts as a guide for Community Wealth Building which includes Community Employment Benefits, Social Procurement, and Community Benefit Agreements. The City of Hamilton and the Hamilton Community Benefits Network are undertaking this project challenge to understand how existing City initiatives can inform and support a Community Benefits Framework, and how this may assist the City as a strategic tool for community wealth building across municipal operations and resource requirements.

City Staff: Romas Keliacius, Healthy and Safe Communities Department

Deliverables: Primary research, Secondary research

Project Partner: McMaster University, Semester in Residence

Location: City Wide

City Strategy Priority: Healthy and Safe Communities, Community Engagement and Participation, Economic Prosperity and Growth, Built Environment and Infrastructure, Culture and Diversity