Our year in review 2022
2022 was an amazing year at Habitus. We would like to thank our clients for their ongoing, important work in the community and for allowing us to support your efforts. Check out our post for more details on what we’ve been up to. While this is not an exhaustive list of our projects from this past year, we wanted to highlight a few learning and impacts for varying projects.
City of Calgary Anti-Racism Strategy
Building a large scale anti-racism municipal strategy requires:
♦ Weaving together Indigenous and Elders’ perspectives
♦ An anti-racism perspective towards systems change.
♦ A Community Brokers model
City of Calgary
Public Safety
Anti-Racism Strategy
Building a public safety anti-racism strategy requires:
♦ An in-depth understanding of public safety, hate, and discrimination.
♦ Utilization of anti-hate and anti-discrimination perspectives.
City of Calgary Calgary Police Service (CPS) Anti-Racism Strategy
Trust and relationship building is a large piece to this work:
♦ Previous relationship building with community members helped people be more willing to support our work on the anti-racism strategy for CPS.
♦ Utilizing a co-hosting partnership model within data collection ensured that information was collected in a way that was relationships-driven. It helped participants feel safe to share their experiences and has embedded trust in the process.
Through the creation of safer spaces, people in Calgary were able to talk about their experiences of racism and discrimination in relation to CPS. This will ensure the CPS anti-racism strategy is embedded with community voices.
Mental Health Commission of Canada
Cannabis as Relief in Mental Health and Addiction (CARMHA) Research Project
Conducting a peer-led research project takes time and effort:
♦ It requires intentionally thinking through the ethics of a research project, including where and how to integrate peers into a project.
♦ Integrating principles of equity, codevelopment and intersectionality is essential to the work.
Integrating peer voices into the research created a stronger analytical framework for the project. This helped us meaningfully build in lived and/or living experience. This enhanced our findings, but will also assist future projects to have a stronger impact.
Rise Calgary Mobility Coaching
Different approaches and angles can be used to address challenges to poverty in our community. Sometimes people need assistance with basic needs, but other times people need a supportive environment to identify their goals. Many people don’t have this support, which can impede decision making processes and the ability to build bridges out of poverty.
Data helped influence and inform decision making within this project – enhancing understanding of client outcomes and evidence of impact – better enabling Rise to address poverty within our city.
YMCA - Y Journey Cohort
The COVID-19 pandemic has drastically increased youth’s motivation for utilizing physical activity as a method of improving their health and wellness. It has made 12-13 year olds really interested in the topic of mental health.
Through gathering insights from families involved in this program, we have helped YMCA’s youth programming to strategize, validate and create initiatives to engage youth in physical activity.
ActiveCITY Evaluation Strategic Planning
Habitus is well positioned to assist organizations who are looking to create a strategic plan, including those doing high-level work. Through our evaluative and intersectional approach we offer a unique perspective, which is especially useful when addressing barriers, such as those experienced by newcomer youth and low income individuals, within our community.
We have been able to support the development of the organization’s long term strategy, which is aligned with their actions, to offer them a tangible vision for the future.
AAWEAR - Annual Evaluation
Working collaboratively with populations experiencing houselessness and substance use requires:
♦ Valuing lived and/or living experience.
♦ Intentionally integrating and connecting to communities.
♦ An open minded perspective.
We have helped AAWEAR grow over the past year by co-developing data systems, strategic guidance and other internal mechanisms. Through this AAWEAR can continue to expand their services, which ultimately helps individuals in our province.