Systemic Advocacy
MACY’s Systemic Advocacy Specialist plays a vital role in identifying and addressing systemic issues affecting children, youth, young adults, and their families. Working collaboratively across sectors, the program seeks to address systemic barriers and promote conditions that support the rights, well-being, and best interests of young people. Throughout the year, systemic advocacy worked closely with MACY programs, community partners, service providers, and government representatives to identify emerging issues and advance coordinated responses to complex challenges facing Manitoba’s children and youth.
Over the past several years, the Specialist has worked in the following areas:
- Housing and well-being
- Youth justice
- Disability rights, inclusion, and education
- Community safety and prevention
- Research, evaluation, and system improvement
- And more!
PROJECTS
As part of the Innagakeyaa Bimadizewin (Toward the Good Life) initiative, which stemmed from the special report release, working groups met with the goal of strengthening collaboration among systems that support youth who use substances. Amongst other things, the initiative culminated in the development and release of the Collaborator Bundle, a collection of resources intended to strengthen collaboration, support practice alignment across systems, address structural barriers, and advance more responsive approaches to youth well-being.
Review the explainer video, and then download the bundle documents:
- Strengthening Conditions for Relational System Change (video)
- The summary report of the working group process and key learnings: Innagakeyaa Bimadizewin (Towards the Good Life): Strengthening Conditions for Relational System Change
- Pathway I: Restoring Balance: An Intersystem Practice Resource for Service Providers Across Systems Working with Youth Who Use Substances
- Pathway II: More Than a Mandate: Building Relationally Accountable Systems for Youth Who Use Substances in Manitoba (legislative review)
- Pathway III: Intersystem Youth Well-Being Circle: A Working Group Vision for Sustained Collaboration and System Alignment (proposal for ongoing collaboration)