An evidence generation approach for the Community Healing Project
The City of Toronto has invested significant resources in understanding how to address and support communities, especially youth, impacted by violence and trauma. While recognizing that youth who are exposed to violence in their communities are vulnerable to becoming involved in violence themselves.
The Community Healing Project for Crime Prevention and Intervention (CHP) is an innovative approach that aims to prevent community violence and address its impacts on communities. The project offers skill-building in the areas of mental health literacy and resiliency for youth in Toronto. Through this project, trained and certified young people (Peer Healers) deliver workshops and provide supports to other youth in their communities who are vulnerable to involvement in gangs and violence. The five-year project is a partnership between the City of Toronto, Stella’s Place, and local service providers. The initiative is funded by Public Safety Canada as part of their National Crime Prevention Strategy.
Blueprint was engaged to design and execute an evidence generation approach that would engage all partners and generate meaningful and actionable insights about the outcomes and implementation of the project. We are working in collaboration with the City and Stella’s Place to design and implement and evaluate CHP in a way that reflects the strengths and the needs of youth involved.
As part of the process, we are exploring participatory evaluation approaches that directly involve peer healers in leading focus groups and developing surveys. The findings from our evaluation will assess how effective CHP is in improving internal and external protective factors for youth impacted by violence and trauma, and inform the continuous improvement and adaptation of the model.
Read our annual reports here:
Our team and partners live and work on the traditional territory of many Indigenous people across Turtle Island. Blueprint’s home office is situated in the area known as Tkaronto, an area that has been caretaken by the Anishinabek Nation, the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, and the Huron-Wendat for thousands of years. We strive to meaningfully incorporate principles of reconciliation with First Nations, Inuit, and Métis peoples in our day-to-day work, as is our collective responsibility as treaty people, which requires ongoing reflection and collective action.
© 2025 Blueprint. All rights reserved. Accessibility | DEI at Blueprint