HUMAN CENTRED DESIGN LAB • 2025
Participatory research with Ottawa community partners on why young people disconnect from school and work and what could help them reconnect
TIMELINE
May-Aug 2025
Project at a glance
Problem
11.5%
of Canadian youth aged 15–29 are not in education, employment or training, and face a high risk of poverty. We needed evidence on what keeps them disconnected.
Source: ESDC, 2025
My contribution
25+
community resources mapped. I led the literature review, then transcribed and coded interview data into 5 research areas for synthesis.
What we did
26
subject matter expert interviews across 16 youth organizations, grounded in a community roundtable, literature review, and resource map.
Participatory study, funded by a $400K Embark Student Foundation grant
What's next
Synthesis • in progress
the associate researchers are carrying the dataset into synthesis; the wider initiative will design, pilot and evaluate interventions.
OVERVIEW
Context
TASTE (Transdisciplinary Approach to Service Transformation in NEET) is a long-term initiative to design, pilot, and evaluate ways to reconnect young people in Ottawa with education, employment, or training.
PROBLEM
11.5% of Canadian youth aged 15-29 are NEET
In 2025
914,000
youth not in employment, education, or training
Since 2023
+200,000
more NEET youth
Global Goal
UN SDG 8.6
calls for a substantial cut in youth NEET rates
Sources: ESDC, 2025); Statistics Canada, Labour Force Survey; OECD (2024); Stea et al. (2024)
Approach
Roundtable
We needed to understand the existing landscape: who was already serving NEET youth, what the research said about the barriers they faced, and what the community itself believed the project should prioritize.
Roundtable at RRCRC, our partnering community centre
Defining Scope
We recognized a limitation: youth facing more acute, compounding crises would likely be harder to reach within the project's scope. Rather than ruling anyone out, we carried this forward as we developed interview guides to explore the problem further.
DESK RESEARCH
Literature Review
I synthesized existing global and local research on NEET youth and effective engagement strategies, grouped by topic to give the team a structured view of the landscape.
Five themes shaped our interview guides
Cropped view of the literature review board, organized by regional differences, risk factors and mitigation, applied interventions, COVID-19 impact, and world organizations.
Community Resource Map
I built a base map of 25+ Ottawa organizations serving youth. I familiarized the team with the existing ecosystem and shaped which organizations we interviewed.
25+ organizations, sorted by who they serve
Community resource database (cropped). Each entry records who the organization serves, what it offers, and how it operates.
interviews
Voices from the Field
26 Subject Matter Expert Interviews
I supported interviews with SMEs across the whole ecosystem a young person might touch: public safety, traditional and alternative education, post-secondary, guidance and counselling, youth programmers, and employment services. The associate researchers developed the interview guides; my role was note taking and cleaning transcriptions.
Preparing Data for Synthesis
I coded interview transcripts in Miro, one board per interview, grouping responses into five research areas so data is easier to compare and synthesize across all 26 interviews.
research areas
ON SITE
Residency @ RRCRC
I returned to RRCRC to see their programs and spaces firsthand rather than through the framing of a roundtable discussion. Also, my team had begun our part-time residency!
Team at RRCRC during our residency. I'm not pictured here.
Handoff
My involvement ended once the interviews were coded and organized. That dataset became the input for the associate researchers' synthesis and strategy development.
REFLECTION
What I Learned
True impact begins with empathy and proximity
How leaders work with youth and how impactful an environment is, is surfaced through presence and connection. How can we design something for youth without their input and understanding their realities? Interviewing leaders who have built lasting relationships with youth grounds this study, because to design a solution for young people means hearing out those who work with them and have have earned their trust. As the project progresses, hopefully working directly with youth becomes a possibility.