Collaboration between the community and education sectors
You have just created an alliance between the community sector and the education sector! This is exactly what was done by :
The YWCA Montreal, together with various secondary schools in Greater Montreal, thanks to the Working Together Against Sexual Exploitation project financed by the Department of Women and Gender Equality Canada (WAGE)
AND Action Jeunesse de l’Ouest-de-l’Île (AJOI), by working with several schools in the borough of Montreal West through the Ange de l’AJOI project.
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How the community sector benefits from this collaboration
How the education sector benefits from this collaboration
Testimonials
“The specific goal of the work committee was to create strategic action plans, but in the end we did much more, by developing tools. By having different people work together, the project directly contributed towards reinforcing the relationships of trust and strengthening the partnerships.”
— Laurence Arbogast
Facilitator for Working Together Against Sexual Exploitation – Montreal YWCA
Description of the collaboration
Working Together Against Sexual Exploitation
The project contributes towards combating the sexual exploitation of girls by tackling the institutional barriers that prevent this problem from being addressed, and by mobilizing partners to implement institutional changes within the education and community sectors. By working with educational institutions in underprivileged areas of Greater Montreal and by collaborating with key partners, the project focused on creating strategic action plans that were put in place in educational institutions with the goal of preventing the recruitment of girls for the purposes of sexual exploitation, and to help them get out of these situations.
L’Ange de l’AJOI
The Sexuality Committee set up by École secondaire Dorval-Jean-XXIII makes it possible to work collaboratively on the development of sexual education programming in the education sector, and on the sexual exploitation prevention programs in the community sector. The expertise of each person on the committee is leveraged in order to ensure complementary approaches in the content developed for youth. In addition, by facilitating activities in the education sector, youth get to know the community intervention workers, who can then introduce them to the services offered by their respective organizations.
Testimonial
“At École secondaire Dorval-Jean-XXIII, we benefit from an amazing collaboration with several organizations that come to facilitate courses related to the sexual education program. The intervention workers from these organizations are open to meeting with individual students at the school afterwards, to discuss youth-related issues and each student’s particular concerns. This is so valuable, and it’s a win-win situation for youth.”
— Geneviève Roy
Psychoeducator – École secondaire Dorval-Jean-XXIII
Impact of the collaboration
Testimonial
“The participation of AJOI in École Dorval-Jean-XXIII’s sexuality committee resulted in a sharing of resources and expertise, to the benefit of youth. By planning the roll-out of what will be offered to the students over the course of the school year with respect to sexual education and related topics, the intervention workers around the table get to know one another, which makes it easier to understand each person’s roles and limitations, and ensures that referrals are tailored to the respective youth’s needs.”
— Andrée Levesque
Assistant Executive Director – Action jeunesse de l’Ouest-de-l’Île (AJOI)
Conclusion
Collaboration between community and education sectors allows youth to become familiar with and access the range of services and resources put in place for them. The resulting relationship of trust established between youth and the different sectors guarantees that the safety net is strengthened.
The creation of cross-sectoral work committees in several regions of Quebec would ensure the implementation of strategic and collaborative action plans to help fight the issue of youth being recruited for the purposes of sexual exploitation.
You have just completed the alliance!
We suggest that you consult the toolbox to learn more about : Steps of cross-sectoral collaboration, How can we make cross-sectoral collaborations successful? and What is cross-sectoral and inter regional collaboration?
The partners on the Working Committee influenced the delivery of the project by formulating requests, such as the creation of certain prevention and intervention tools. In particular, the Risk and Protective factors chart, the List of possible indicators of sexual exploitation and the List of resources were developed due to the recommendations and collaborative work of the partners.
