Skip to content
Pages
-
-
Project Assessment and Evaluation: The Aspire Program
-
By Emily Amanda Wessels, Completed for: John Howard Society Peterborough; Supervising Professor: Hayley Goodchild; Trent Community Research Centre, This report provides an analysis and evaluation of the Aspire program based out of the John Howard Society of Peterborough. This program aims at assisting youth ages 17-25 in achieving their personal career and training goals through mentor-based relationships. Methods of analysis include literature review and semi-structured interviews. A review of academic and grey literature on engaging young adults in positive development through mentoring relationships was completed. The semi- structured interview aspect of the research focused on identifying the aspects of successful mentoring relationships that have lasted more than three months and assessing the effectiveness of the Aspire program as it is currently practiced. Currently there are six mentoring matches at the John Howard Society which have exceeded three months in length. The researcher conducted semi-structured interviews with mentors and mentees involved in the program. The interviews focused on the participants’ experiences in the program and were not life history type interviews. The data obtained was transcribed and analyzed using coding and grounded theory. The data collected suggests that that mentoring relationships can contribute to positive youth development. In particular, mentoring relationships that last a year or more tend to show increased signs of positive youth development. The report finds the prospects of the Aspire Program in its current position are positive, however implementation in some areas of the program could be improved. The areas of weakness require further investigation and action by the management of the program. However, these results are based on a small sample size so may not be generalizable to the program as a whole. The report also investigates the fact that the analysis conducted has limitations. Some of these limitations include; data limitations as a result of the small group of interviewees.
-
-
Forest and Vernal Pool Quality: Evaluation for Potential Salamander Reintroduction
-
By Shantanu Dutt & Sarah Bencic, Completed for: Northumberland Land Trust; Supervising Professor: Tom Whillans; Trent Community Research Centre, This project was developed for the Northumberland Land Trust (NLT) to assess and determine the suitability of the Laurie Lawson Education Centre property in Cobourg; for possible salamander introduction. In the initial research for this project many experts and expert literature sources were consulted to develop methods of assessment and to layout our onsite research. From this research we established that there are many factors which might affect survival of salamanders in an established population, and that would affect the suitability of habitat for translocation of salamanders. The substantial number of vernal pools on the property was the main reason for the Northumberland Land Trust’s request for research and an assessment into the property’s suitability.
-
-
Inter-comparison of Precipitation Gauges for Water Survey Monitoring
-
By Scotia Brailsford and Meghan Forget, Completed for: Ministry of Natural Resources; Supervising Professor: Tom Whillans; Trent Community Research Centre, Precipitation gauges have historically been a valuable asset for surface water monitoring (Tokay et al, 2010), as well as predicting climatic change and seasonal variation (Grieser, 2015). This study will focus on the performances of three precipitation gauges at the Trent Climate Station in Peterborough, Ontario. The motivation of this project is to evaluate the potential of the new Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry (OMNRF) precipitation gauge for its provincial surface water monitoring network. We will evaluate the effectiveness of the new OMNRF gauge by comparing it to the data gathered from Trent’s established gauges, the Tipping bucket and GEONOR models. In doing so, we hope to provide insight on whether the new model of gauge is an improvement, equivalent, or less reliable when compared with the established models. We will compare reliability, ease of use, and potential applications in order to help determine the benefits and drawbacks of the new gauge.
-
-
Barriers Preventing Youth from Using Transportation in Peterborough
-
By Jacob Slater, Completed for: Peterborough Youth Commission; Supervising Professor: Cheryl McKenna-Newman & Roger Picton; Trent Community Research Centre, Barriers Preventing Youth From Using Transportation in Peterborough was a community based research project that was completed in the 2017-2018 academic year at Trent University,Peterborough, Ontario, Canada. The purpose of the project was to expand on information previously obtained by the Peterborough Youth Council (the host organization of the project), being that the youth demographic of Peterborough experience issues when accessing the local pubic transit system. Specifically, this project illustrated the expansion of this information and through research it was identified that the perception of transit accessibility vary significantly across socioeconomic cohorts. Through performing a literature reviews and conducting interviews, several attributes were identified as having influence over transit accessibility including: frequency, overall route and network coverage, as well as user’s proximity to transit stops. However it was noted that through research that different perspectives exists in regards to which attribute is considered the most important or most significant. Ultimately, these different perspectives present the suggestion that citizens from different life-stages and social statuses hold distinctive attitudes regarding transit accessibility. As result, several research tools were created with the intention of being used in further studies conducted by the Peterborough Youth Council that would be used to investigate the specific factors that lead to youth in Peterborough having issues and feelings of anxiety when accessing public transit. Furthermore, several strategies that could improve transit accessibility, by targeting specific attributes that were deemed as having significant influence over transit accessibility were suggested.
-
-
The Experiences of Residents with the City of Peterborough's Rent Supplement Programs Part 2
-
By Sabrina Bailey, Completed for: City of Peterborough Housing Division; Supervising Professor: Sharon Beaucage-Johnson; Trent Community Research Centre, FRSC 4890Y -, The purpose of this research was to determine what feedback the City of Peterborough should gather from recipients of its supplement programs, what survey structure can be implemented on an annual basis, what impact on quality of life financial support has had on tenants, and how the rent supplement has affected the recipients’ living arrangements. The City of Peterborough rent supplement program provides rent subsidies to individuals of low income to reduce the amount that they have to allocate to rent. To accomplish the goals of this study, recipients of rent supplements participated in a survey and focus group. The survey consisted of quantitative and qualitative questions inquiring about the participants’ experiences since receiving the supplement. The focus group expanded on the results from the survey. Grey literature research was conducted to determine what information other municipalities have gathered on residents’ experiences with their rent supplement programs. The data shows that overall the quality of life and living arrangements have improved for individuals receiving a rent supplement. Residents can now afford healthier groceries and social activities. In order to conduct the survey on an annual basis the questions should be quantitative and responses collected on a scale of strongly agree to strongly disagree. This paper is a continuation of a project that is interested in the experiences of residents receiving supplements from the City of Peterborough. Part one of this research focused on geared-to-income programs. This part focuses on flat-rate rent supplements offered by the Housing Resource Centre.
Pages
