Profile
| Keywords: | Youth homelessness, youth at-risk, policy, institutions, youth development |
Naomi Nichols is an Associate Professor (Sociology) and the Canada Research Chair (Tier II) in Community-Partnered Social Justice at Trent University. Until August 2020, she was an Associate Professor (Education) at McGill University. Professor Nichols is the Principal Investigator for a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) of Canada Grant called, Data Justice: Fostering equitable data-led strategies to prevent, reduce and end youth homelessness and another called, Building from Experience: Youth-led strategies for homelessness prevention and housing stabilization. She is also a research theme lead (knowledge mobilization) for the SSHRC partnership grant: the Canadian Observatory on Homelessness and a research theme lead (prevention) for the Networks of Centres of Excellence: Making the Shift: Youth Homelessness Solutions Impacts Accelerator. Nichols’ research activities and publications span the areas of social inequality; poverty; youth homelessness; youth justice; child welfare; education; “youth at risk;” youth mental health; higher education, research impact and community-academic research collaborations. In 2014, the University of Toronto Press published her first book: Youth Work: An institutional ethnography of youth homelessness. In 2016, she produced a co-edited book, published by the Homeless Hub: Exploring Effective Systems Responses to Homelessness, and in 2019, the University of Toronto Press released Nichols' second sole-authored book: Youth, School and Community: Participatory Institutional Ethnographies. MtS Funded ProjectsOutputs
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| The Implementation of Coordinated Access to End Homelessness in Ontario, CanadaTo receive federal homelessness funding, cities in Canada must adhere to federal policy directives associated with the government of Canada’s Reaching Home program. These directives include the implementation of a homelessness management information system (HMIS) and a Coordinated Access process. In this article, we draw on 90 in-depth interviews and extensive policy and institutional analysis to assess the implementation of Coordinated Access in one Ontario city. Our findings suggest that none of the four pillars of Coordinated Access (access, assessment, prioritization, matching, and referral) work as intended. Structural and systemic challenges (e.g., related to housing stock, staff turnover, inaccessibility of shelters, criminalizing municipal bylaws, and the reliability of the assessment tool) undermine the efficacy of the process as a means of improving transparency, service coordination, and housing outcomes. Despite being an early adopter of the Coordinated Access process, this Ontario municipality continues to struggle with a growing housing affordability crisis and an unhoused population.P27 Trent University | Publication | 2024-04-25 | | | The Politics of Prevention and Government Responses to Homelessness Recently, the logic of public health prevention has found a foothold in research and advocacy about homelessness. From a commonsense perspective, the prevention of a social problem like homelessness is an objectively positive aim. However, in the realm of social and health policy, the concept of prevention is not simply a common-sense word. It is part of a wider set of rationalities and technologies of governance which operate in and through the institution of public health. Research demonstrates that state-driven interventions designed to advance the health of a population often pose problems for particular groups. Prevention efforts, and their differential effects, thus have the potential to illuminate how state-interventions pursued with the objective of safe-guarding the public in general may simultaneously exacerbate specific structural and systemic forms of inequality. In this article, we probe the ethical, empirical, and political dimensions of state-driven responses to the coronavirus disease of 2019 (COVID-19) public health crisis, surfacing some of the ways these interventions posed problems for people who are homeless and experience intersecting health and socio-political disparities. From this vantage point, we then look critically at moves to frame homelessness as a public health crisis, as well as government efforts to prevent homelessness by drawing on public health rationalities. Although our focus is homelessness prevention, as constructed and pursued by governments, our analysis is inspired by critical public health scholarship that challenges the apparent impartiality of prevention as a central logic and set of practices in public health contexts.P27 Trent University | Publication | 2024-04-25 | | | Towards youth-centered information practices to support youth facing homelessness: Experiences and perspectives of youth with lived experience and community service providersAn academic paper, currently in revision with Journal of Social Distress and Homelessness. It provides the co-experience, the intersection of experience, of youth and community service providers around homelessness data collectionP22 PolicyWise for Children and Families, Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, Trent University, University of Lethbridge | Publication | 2025-02-06 | | | First meeting to launch the teamOn June 4th, 2021, we held our first team meeting, bringing together 30 engaged people combining: community partners, youth with lived experience, researchers and students who will be working on the project. We also began the meeting with opening remarks on solidarity and recognizing the relationships that underpin the work. We also set an intention to honour the diversity of knowledge bases (practices, academic, experiential) to develop a made-in-Quebec prevention framework, and a commitment to bring in voices that are currently absent (including indigenous and POC), to broaden our circle. A rollout of activities and next steps was shared.P17 Trent University, University of Montreal | Activity | 2021-06-04 | | | Supplement 1: Making the Shift: Roadmap for Youth Homelessness Data Infrastructure. Canadian Data Infrastructure Scan.Summary of interim finding from scan on Canadian data infrastructure.P22 PolicyWise for Children and Families, Trent University, University of Lethbridge | Publication | 2023-09-21 | | | Supplement 2: Making the Shift: Roadmap for Youth Homelessness Data Infrastructure. Project Interviews. A summary of interim findings from interviews with Making the Shift project holders around their learnings working youth homelessness prevention data.P22 PolicyWise for Children and Families, Trent University, University of Lethbridge | Publication | 2023-09-26 | | | Supplement 3: Making the Shift: Roadmap for Youth Homelessness Data Infrastructure. Promising Practices Literature Review. A summary of interim findings around a literature review on promising practices for administrative data for youth homelessness.P22 PolicyWise for Children and Families, Trent University, University of Lethbridge | Publication | 2023-09-21 | | | Supplement 4: Making the Shift: Roadmap for Youth Homelessness Data Infrastructure. Community Service Provider Interviews. Summary of interim findings from Community Service Provider interviews.P22 PolicyWise for Children and Families, Trent University, University of Lethbridge | Publication | 2024-03-22 | | | Supplement 5: Making the Shift: Roadmap for Youth Homelessness Data Infrastructure. Youth Focus Groups. A summary of interim findings from youth focus groups around data collection when they were homeless.P22 Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, PolicyWise for Children and Families, Trent University, University of Lethbridge | Publication | 2024-03-22 | | | Supplement 6: Making the Shift: Roadmap for Youth Homelessness Data Infrastructure. Canadian Policy Scan.A summary of interim findings from a Canadian policy scan, linking roadmap project findings to current policy.P22 Trent University, University of Lethbridge, PolicyWise for Children and Families | Publication | 2024-04-29 | | | A Data Infrastructure Roadmap for Youth Homelessness Prevention: Final Report. The final, detailed report on findings around a roadmap for information to prevent youth homelessness.P22 PolicyWise for Children and Families, Trent University, University of Lethbridge | Publication | 2025-02-19 | | | A Roadmap for Youth Homelessness Data Infrastructure: Summary ReportA summary of the roadmap findings and recommendations around information to prevent youth homelessness.P22 PolicyWise for Children and Families, Trent University, University of Lethbridge | Publication | 2025-02-20 | | | A roadmap for Canadian Information to Prevent Youth HomelessnessPresentation at academic conference, CAHSPR 2024.P22 PolicyWise for Children and Families, Trent University, University of Lethbridge | Presentation | 2024-05-14 | | | Co-creation of a roadmap for Canadian Homelessness data infrastructure for youth homelessness preventionPresentation in the Making the Shift Conference on the roadmap.P22 PolicyWise for Children and Families, Trent University, University of Lethbridge | Presentation | 2025-02-24 | |
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