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Laidlaw Foundation

The Foundation’s current work promotes positive youth development through inclusive youth engagement in the arts, environment and in community. It recognizes that all young people need the unconditional support of significant adults in their lives and need multiple opportunities to locate an individual talent and the resources necessary to develop that talent.

We believe that inclusive communities foster the active participation of young people from diverse social, economic, racial and ethnic family backgrounds in civic life and community leadership.

Inclusive Youth Engagement - a pathway to Positive Youth Development

The current landscape offers little support for meaningful youth participation and engagement in issues that affect young people’s well-being. Most current policies and service delivery for youth begin with the assumption that young people are problems to be fixed. Experience at the Laidlaw Foundation points to the need for inclusive opportunities and environments that support and nurture young people as social assets.

For the Foundation, the question is not whether young people have the ability to identify and address issues that affect their lives in direct and indirect ways, but whether there are meaningful opportunities (such as formal/informal structures, receptive adults/organizations, funding and other supports) for them to engage in, inform and tackle these issues.

Positive youth development is more likely to occur if interdependent influences on human development (such as the family, schools, relationships) provide multiple opportunities for young people to identify and nurture an interest or talent, and to interact with supportive adults and peers.

Inclusive Youth Engagement

Our Vision

Our Mission

Core Values

Our Operational Plan

-- Building Youth Social Infrastructure: Read a recently published report and/or watch a short video on the need to develop a social infrastructure that fosters sustained support for self determined youth organizing work in the Toronto area. -- Building Youth Social Infrastructure: Read a recently published report and/or watch a short video on the need to develop a social infrastructure that fosters sustained support for self determined youth organizing work in the Toronto area. -- Building Youth Social Infrastructure: Read a recently published report and/or watch a short video on the need to develop a social infrastructure that fosters sustained support for self determined youth organizing work in the Toronto area. -- Building Youth Social Infrastructure: Read a recently published report and/or watch a short video on the need to develop a social infrastructure that fosters sustained support for self determined youth organizing work in the Toronto area. -- Building Youth Social Infrastructure: Read a recently published report and/or watch a short video on the need to develop a social infrastructure that fosters sustained support for self determined youth organizing work in the Toronto area.. -- Building Youth Social Infrastructure: Read a recently published report and/or watch a short video on the need to develop a social infrastructure that fosters sustained support for self determined youth organizing work in the Toronto area. --

Click here for report
and/or video

Key elements in healthy youth development, once basic needs are met, include:

Positive adult relationships.
Positive peer relationships.
Opportunities to develop competence and achievement.
Opportunities for meaningful participation.
Opportunities for self definition.

A key process that facilitates positive youth development is inclusive youth engagement. Inclusive youth engagement means that young people have meaningful ways to participate in decision-making and governance as critical agents within broader society.

Inclusive youth engagement involves:

Discovery and creativity.
Self-determination and ownership.
Shared power in decision-making.
Collective identity as social change agents.
Ability to influence change.

We recognize there are different strategies for promoting positive youth development, ranging from program design incorporating an asset based perspective, programs that build resilience in at-risk youth to youth designed and led initiatives. The Foundation is focusing its efforts on the latter, increasing opportunities for meaningful and inclusive youth engagement by:

Supporting young people in taking action (youth organizing).
Supporting institutional shifts to better engage youth in decision-making.
Supporting policy development that adopts a positive youth development approach.
Strengthening infrastructure and intermediary groups.
Strengthening organizational capacity of youth-led groups.