After 28 years of service, Tony Diniz leaves Child Development Institute (CDI) for a well-deserved retirement. We will miss his strong knowledge and passion for ensuring the children and families we serve are able to acquire the right resources. The impact he’s had on our agency is invaluable and inspires us to strive to continue his work in paving the way for children’s mental health. We are especially grateful for his continued support as we have developed, researched, evaluated and disseminated SNAP. We wish Tony the best with his next chapter.

We are delighted to welcome Dr. Lynn Ryan MacKenzie in joining our team as the new CEO of CDI with her extensive experience in health and human services. Her time as the Acting Assistant Deputy Minister of Operations for the Department of Health, Government of Nunavut, and considerable roles in management in the youth justice and children’s mental health sectors will bring diversity to our team.

Lynn says, “I am honoured by this opportunity. I look forward to working with the CDI team and its many partners in responding to the needs of the community and in moving forward innovative, quality programming across the sector.”

We are excited to create new milestones with her by our side.

SNAP® (Stop Now And Plan) was nominated and selected as the 2018 International Society of Crime Prevention Practitioner’s (ISCPP) Community Program of the Year Category I (population over 100,000) Award. As SNAP continues to scale nationally and internationally, the expertise and dedication of the SNAP teams (Implementation, Research and Clinical) are paramount to achieving such recognitions. Thank you for your commitment to creating massive social change!

The SNAP Implementation and Research (IR) team at CDI were delighted to have Jean Samuel from Turner Consulting Group (TCG) facilitate a two-day intensive training about deconstructing anti-Black racism. Continuing our journey to create culturally responsive and safe environments for all our clients, Jean reviewed how we can embed the principles outlined in Adapting the SNAP Program for Use in the African Canadian Community Reports (Report 1: Research Report; Report 2: Companion Guide) to the SNAP model to better meet their needs. The training was designed to assist the SNAP IR Team in working towards achieving equitable outcomes in service delivery, through knowledge building and awareness of the impacts of marginalization and oppression with an emphasis on anti-Black racism. 

We will continue to explore, reflect and learn from the children, families and communities we serve to better understand how we can provide SNAP in a culturally responsive and safe way. This journey is one of many steps to address racism and dismantle the systemic racism that marginalized people encounter.

Presented by the Minister of Children, Community and Social Services, Lisa MacLeod announced that two new SNAP sites will be implemented in Ottawa at the Somali Centre for Family Services and Britannia Woods Community House. This funding is part of the Services for Black Children, Youth and Families, an initiative of the Enhanced Youth Action Plan. This will bring needed culturally responsive and safe evidence-based mental health services to children and youth in the Ottawa area.

Mohamed Sofa, Executive Director of the Britannia Woods Community House said, “Racialized groups and children have proportionately lower enrolment in treatment and mental health programs… We’re collectively hoping that we can reduce contact with the criminal justice system, child welfare, and give parents the resources to support children on their own” (CBC News, September 11, 2018).

We’re delighted to be working with Britannia Woods Community House and the Somali Centre for Family Services to offer SNAP to more children and families in Ottawa.

Joan Dea, Helen Burstyn, Kilian Berz, Narinder Dhami and the board of LEAP | Pecaut Centre for Social Impact hosted the forum to bring together leaders from across the private sector, non-profit sector, and government that included The Rt. Hon. Paul Martin, The Hon. Ratna Omidvar, Bill Young, and Emary Aronson, to discuss “how we can collectively drive the future of innovation and philanthropy across Canada.” 

Dr. Leena Augimeri and Che Latchford (SNAP Sr. Trainer – Community Facilitator) presented at LEAP|Pecaut Centre for Social Impact’s Do Good, Better Impact Gathering on September 27.  Che opened the forum with sharing his personal story about adversity to professional and personal achievement and his call to action about providing more opportunities as he indicated, “There’s a fine line between opportunity and luck”.

Leena’s presentation highlighted how adversity impacts healthy child development  and the need for evidence-based early intervention mental health services such as SNAP -- keeping children in school and out of trouble.   She also underlined the importance of working together as a collective to do better – ‘because good enough is no longer enough’.

To learn more about the impact gathering, please click here.