Join us as we continue our conversation with Greg Paul, a passionate advocate for marginalized communities in downtown Toronto. Together, we explore how we can reimagine social services to prioritize human connection, mutual care, and shared safety over agency-centered frameworks. What does it mean to create systems that reflect the humanity of all involved? This episode challenges us to rethink safety as a shared responsibility, fostering trust and support for everyone in the community.

If there's one thing I've learned from Conan O'Brien, it's how to lean into the absurdities of life, to embrace the moments of surprise and keep pace with where it may lead. In a climate that demands preplanned strategies and fully detailed scripts, I wonder whether we are more focused on training our young leaders to execute a set agenda rather than equipping them to discern. While it may be easier to give them a script to read, the craft of improvisation may prove to be the best way to navigate the exceptional margins of society. In a space filled with pain, chaos and excitement, templates may bring a semblance of order, but the intuition of discerning sojourners may go a lot further. In this episode, I end my 3 part conversation with the Director of Youth Unlimited GTA, Scott Moore, where we discuss the role discernment plays in the way we plan and execute programs in the community. We talk about what it means to incorporate the Spirit in our methods and strategies and how we might do this together as a collective entity. 

Please do check out the great work of Youth Unlimited GTA!  

What would you think is the single most important issue to tackle in this world? If you were given a blank canvas and asked to figure this question out, where would you begin? In this episode, we look at how economists approach this question and investigate alternative, more subjective methods to gather and analyze the experiences and data of how things are going in our programs and communities. Specifically, we look at the emerging phenomenon in the social sector to measure the transformation of participants and the community they seek to serve. How precise do we need to be when it comes to gauging human transformation?   

In this episode, I continue my conversation with Scott Moore, the Executive Director of Youth Unlimited GTA (YUGTA) and discuss his experience both developing and deconstructing a measurement tool that sought to gauge the level of transformation occurring within YUGTA's programs. This is the second of a three-part conversation I had with him. 

Feel free to check out the great work being done at Youth Unlimited GTA. https://www.yugta.ca/

Asset-Based Community Development is a powerful movement that has shifted the paradigm of so many attempting to work for social change. In reflecting upon my experiences in this framework, I realized the subtle ways the market and the vocabulary of capitalism infiltrate such beautiful values. In my conversation with Dr. Agnes Thomas, the Executive Director of Catholic Cross-Cultural Services, we work through these important questions to discover the discrete ways community development has been commodified to maximize impact in the social arena.