Research Shop

This report explores the ways in which not-for-profit organizations serving the LGBTQ+ community deliver their services and programming, meet the needs of the community, and adapt to change and difficulties. It summarizes the findings from informational interviews with six not-for-profits across Canada in order to inform the decision-making processes of the Guelph-based organization Out on the Shelf as they undergo organizational restructuring.

This report reviews and compares five "peer parenting" models in place in Canada, focusing on their goals, strengths, limitations, resources, and approaches to volunteer training. It was produced to support the development of a volunteer peer parenting program by the Early Years program at the Guelph Community Health Centre.

This report explores practices and strategies that are used to design websites and social media marketing approaches for the purposes of fundraising. It reviews the literature on the subject to understand what brings individuals to donate, and identifies best practices for engaging donors and sharing success stories. It was prepared to inform decisions at St. Joseph's Health Centre in Guelph with respect to the design of fundraising websites and social media marketing approaches.

This series of five fact sheets on learning disabilities was produced in collaboration with the United Way of Guelph Wellington Dufferin and the Learning Disabilities Association of Wellington County. It seeks to provide information on common learning disabilities, including dyslexia, dyscalculia, and dysgraphia, as well as tips on how to help students who experience those challenges.

This report was prepared for the Children's Foundation of Guelph and Wellington's Food & Friends Program. It shares the findings from an evaluation of student nutrition programs in Guelph, Wellington and Dufferin, which will be used to inform, support, and enhance programming moving forward. Specifically, it reports on interviews and surveys which examined the opinions and experiences of students using these programs, as well as of program coordinators, in order to better understand the value and benefits of universal nutrition programs.

This report provides key findings from an online survey seeking to better understand the needs of the LGBTQ+ community of Guelph-Wellington. It was conducted as a component of a larger collaborative project at the University of Guelph involving the Research Shop, Out of the Shelf, and the Centre for Business and Student Entreprise (CBaSE).

This report summarizes the findings from a needs assessment conducted for Community Justice Initiatives (CJI) of Waterloo Region, a non-profit organization offering restorative justice services. Through a focus group and individual interviews with members of various sectors, organizations and businesses, researchers collected information about the need for mediation services in Guelph-Wellington. The report also discusses possible obstacles to the implementation of such a service. 

This report was completed for Farm and Food Care Canada. It analyses six case studies from various initiatives in order to better understand what facilitates the diffusion of innovation and pro-environmental behaviours. Doing so, this report also identifies predictors of behaviour change and popular theories of behaviour change and discusses general trends and potential obstacles for organizations trying to promote environmentally friendly behaviour.

This infographic was developed for Family Counselling and Support Services for Guelph-Wellington, and the Canadian Families and Corrections Network. It represents the typical journey of a youth offender (aged 12-17) when going through the Canadian criminal justice system. It then compares this journey to the process followed when guiding youth offender through restorative justice and compares costs and outcomes of each process. It concludes that restorative justice is more than six times more cost-effective than traditional criminal justice.

These three highlight sheets were created in order to help the Guelph-Wellington Local Immigration Partnership mobilize the findings and recommendations from its 2016 Immigrant survey report. They present key data on immigrants' 1) basic needs and belonging, 2) employment, education and training, and 3) access to services. The Local Immigration Partnership is using these visual summaries both as hand-outs and large-scale posters in order to share highlights from the report with a variety of stakeholders.