Students Commission Staff

The Students Commission is a national charitable organization committed to youth engagement and youth voice. It has led the Centre of Excellence for Youth Engagement, which is a non-incorporated, ongoing network of collaborators since 2000, and is therefore ideally, and uniquely suited to leading a connection stream, partnership development project. It has existing strong partnerships with Brock University, St. Mary’s University and Wilfrid Laurier University, the YMCA, Youth Launch, and many others. These organizations have been research partners for ten years, successfully acquired research funding, and completed many research projects. The project is lead by Stoney McCart, who is the Executive Director of the Students Commission and the Director of the Centre for Excellence in Youth Engagement.

Angie has been with The Students Commission since the fall of 2006. Angie's roles and responsibilities have included being Stoney's assistant, coordinating and liaising with The Toronto Police Service for Project PEACE workshops in Toronto schools, supporting the SC fundraising team, and youth programming support. Angie recently completed her bachelor's degree in social work and is working full time at an agency geared to prevention of violence against women in Toronto. In an effort to stay connected to the SC, Angie has remained as a part-time staff member, most recently collaborating with Alumni and SC Board members on the upcoming 20th anniversary activities, as well as administrative support for the 2011 Summer Employment Program

As one of the founding members of the Student Commission Barb brings over 30 years experience in national programming, educational events and publishing, staff training, counselling, program management and new information technology applications, in both the government and N.G.O. sectors. To this experience she adds a diverse skill set: management, program development, skills training, web-based and multimedia technology, LAN & WAN networking, server-client applications, database programming. Barb's passion for working directly with young people and her efforts behind the scenes, in support of youth, are invaluable. Her formal education includes a B.A. Linguistics; B.A. Communications; B.A. Psychology. Enough said.

Bonnie Heilman is program coordinator of Youth Launch, located in Nutana Collegiate in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Nutana, a community high school, has been a core partner of the Centre since its inception. Youth Launch has significant expertise and experience engaging youth in schools and community organizations across Saskatchewan, as well as implementing youth engagement projects for various municipal, provincial and federal government departments. They bring a very interesting context of youth-adult partnerships within a community alternative school setting and experience in supporting collaborations of youth and academics. The team at Youth Launch developed the Adult Ally training that has been a key component of the Centre’s work in supporting the development of youth-adult partnerships. They have provided training for various multi-disciplinary and multi-sectoral audiences and so are key to mobilizing the knowledge from this project to their extensive provincial networks. Their provincial reputation and ongoing collaboration with academic partners in the Centre, position them as a strong hub in Saskatchewan.

Jo'el Douglas has volunteered and worked for Student Commission since 2006, facilitating and participating in various projects and conferences such as the groundbreaking Project Not So Much, Peace Project, and Unite and Ignite to name a few. In 2010 he created a recording arts program, allowing particpants interested in artist development to access a sound studio at no cost. This has allowed for a new stream of viral media to be published by the Students Commmission through Influence In Action and upcomming projects to be announced summer 2011 thanks to the contribution of participants, artists, and producers supporting this projects vision.

Kyle MacNevin is the rookie member of the Students Commission team; he is the Project Coordinator for the Eastern Hub of the Students Commission. During his time at the S.C he has worked on a number of projects such as: Influence in Action, Unite and Ignite, Youth Adult Partnerships and YAC-YLT. He is also the Chair of the Youth Matters Network, a division of the SC in New Brunswick. He is the youth representative for the Crime Prevention Association of New Brunswick, and is the President of the Next Generation Board, an international youth network partnered with Ignitus World Wide and Youth Crime Watch of America. He is trained in the Dr. Botvin LifeSkills program for elementary, middle and high school. Kyle is studying History at St. Thomas University; he also has an interest in Finance, Civic Engagement and Human Rights. Kyle is an enthusiastic compassionate and driven individual ready to help the SC and his generation create change in Canada.

Mr. Nishad Khanna has worked with the Centre of Excellence for Youth Engagement since 2002, having grown up in the youth facilitation program at Youth Launch, a core partner of the Centre. He has been involved in developing and implementing various youth programs, events and youth-engaged research with the Students Commission, organizational partners and academic partners. As research coordinator of the Centre of Excellence, he has a long history with the community-university partnerships we have developed over the past 10 years, as well as experience facilitating and coordinating youth participatory action research.

Mr. Pytor Hodgson has worked with the Centre of Excellence for Youth Engagement since its inception and has been involved in developing and executing over 150 youth conferences and projects with at least six other major youth organizations. It is a priority of the Students Commission and the partnering agencies to empower youth to become involved in research.

 

Sharif has been working with the Students Commission of Canada for over a year. Sharif is primarily responsibile for coordinating the various national, provincial and local youth-focused projects of the organization. Projects have included: the Youth Assembly on Gambling and Co-Addictions, Project PEACE (crime prevention program), Influence in Action (critical thinking and drug awareness program), Peace Blueprint project, Health Canada's Youth Action Committee (YAC) (tobacco awareness program) and a variety of national and provincial conferences. Sharif began his career in camping working at YMCA Camp Pine Crest in Muskoka Ontario for 8 summers as a counsellor, leadership development trainer, staff supervisor and assistant director. Sharif graduated from the University of Western Ontario with Bachelor of Health Sciences degree in Health Promotion.

Dr. Susan Reid, a criminology professor at St. Thomas University, is the director of the Centre for Research on Youth at Risk. She brings expertise in the area of youth at risk, and youth involved in the justice system. She will be working closely with partner organization, John Howard Society New Brunswick and will work as lead of the New Brunswick hub.

 

Ms. Tena Brown has been involved with the Students Commission of Canada since 2005. She first started out as a participant of the youth program, Project PEACE, attending youth group meeting and workshops in school. Since then she has joined the Students Commission team and has been involved in developing and implementing various youth programs and events. She has worked on various projects with the organization, such as Young Decision Makers, Project PEACE and most recently led Influence in Action trainings throughout Ontario.  She also has experience in facilitating at different events such as the Youth Gambling Assembly and Unite and Ignite conference.

Todd began working with the Students Commission (SC) in 1991 as a member of the Tiny Giant print-production team (formerly Teen Generation magazine). For the past 20 years he has used his graphic design skills to support youth initiatives and programming at the SC. Working closely with youth he balances the skill development of young people with the needs of a professional design team to deliver quality products to clients while creating effective communication tools that are relevant, meaningful and useful to youth-serving organizations and the youth they serve.