To support the health of our community during COVID-19, we’ve moved online as well.
All workplace programs are also available in a digital, synchronous format.
Adult Programs
For adult learners, we offer two innovative, customized programs that prevent homophobia, transphobia, and sexual violence in youth-serving spaces and workplace environments.
YES!
Youth Equity Support
For Teachers, Community Support Workers, Camp Directors, and Parents
YES workshops support youth service providers - like teachers, community support workers, camp directors, and even parents - to develop foundational skills for creating inclusive youth spaces.
Reframe
DEI Training
For Corporate and Nonprofit Workplaces
Our project Reframe offers Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) training where every partnership helps to fund CANVAS’ mission.
Program Customization
Our interactive workshops are tailored to meet the unique needs of any adult learner. Each engagement begins with these four steps to help learners get the most out of their workshop.
Step 1 - Pre-work
Any CANVAS program starts with you and your team. Our pre-survey or diagnostic helps gain a deeper sense of topic interest, personal past experience, and key learnings participants hope to gain.
Step 2 - Tailoring
We know that parents have different needs than teachers and camp directors have different needs than community workers. Combining our proven evidence-based model, the unique data gathered in the pre-survey, and insights from your context, we develop the right program flow for your group’s needs.
Step 3 - Facilitation
Using our unique empathy-based model, participants are engaged through an interactive style involving group discussion, personal reflection, and educational activities. Our expert facilitators guide the conversation, bringing insight from their lived and professional experience.
Step 4 - Evaluation
All programs conclude with a follow up activity, either in the form of a post-survey or ongoing check-ins. Findings are shared in a comprehensive report, detailing data from the surveys, outcomes from the workshops, and/or suggested next steps.
YES!
Youth Equity Support
YES workshops support youth service providers - like teachers, community support workers, camp directors, and even parents - to develop foundational skills for creating inclusive youth spaces. A YES workshop or panel will prepare you to engage with and answer questions from youth on the topics of 2SLGBTQIA+ inclusion, consent, gender equity, and arts programming. YES consulting coaches you through complexities and supports you to improve policies, cultural norms, and infrastructure to create compassionate youth environments. Learn more about these three services below.
YES! Topics
YES! 2SLGBTQ+ Inclusion
Creating Affirming Spaces for Youth
Our 2SLGBTQIA+ inclusion workshops take participants through a series of activities and structured conversations, offering strategies to create safer, celebratory spaces for 2SLGBTQIA+ youth. Learn key terms, explore allyship concepts, and reflect on stories of those with lived experience. Ultimately leave with a sense of confidence that you have all the tools necessary to successfully support youth of all genders and sexualities.
YES! Consent Cultures
Promoting Consent and Supporting Survivors
In order to challenge rape culture in our communities, it is essential that youth-serving adults learn how to foster, promote, and maintain a culture of consent in their youth spaces. Participants in this workshop will learn best practices to construct environments free of harassment, sexual pressures, and shame, all while gaining skills to tangibly support youth survivors of sexual violence.
YES! Gender Diversity
Exploring Gender — Expression, Oppression, and Celebration
Youth are exploring and creating their own unique identities every single day, whether we see it or not. In order to freely express yourself as a young person, it is necessary to be in spaces that actively work to dismantle rigid gender expectations. In this workshop, participants will learn the breadth of gender identity experiences, reflect on the ways gender expectations oppress young people in our society, and gain skills to support trans and gender non-conforming youth.
YES! Create
Building Supportive, Arts-inspired Environments
In fall of 2021, we are excited to be launching a brand new YES! project supported by the Ontario Trillium Foundation. Created through a series of co-design sessions with youth involved in our community spoken word program, Back Talk: Voices Against Violence, our Yes! Create workshops will impart key aspects necessary to creating inspiring arts programs for marginalized youth. Designed with women and girls, non-binary people, survivors of sexual violence, and street-involved/homeless youth in mind, this workshop will help creatively transform the way you approach community programming.
YES! Consulting
YES Consulting equips youth-serving staff or senior leaders with foundational knowledge on queer and trans inclusion and sexual violence prevention, as well as concrete strategies to improve culture, policies, and infrastructure. We work directly with participants to address specific questions and create plans to meet your goals.
Diagnostic & Initial Session
The process begins with a diagnostic survey, which we review to customize the consultation. One of CANVAS’ senior consultants and one team member with lived experience on the topic (e.g. trans identified) will meet with your leadership team (max. 5 participants) and have a 1.5-hour video call to work through our findings from the diagnostic, answer your questions, set goals, and discuss actionable strategies.
Ongoing Consulting
After the Initial Consulting Session, the senior consultant will stay in touch and your staff can reach out for ongoing support to address questions and concerns as they come up.
YES! Panels
A panel is a great way to hear diverse viewpoints on a given topic. Based on a pre-survey completed by your team, we customize panels to focus on key themes emerging from staff queries. All panels include multiple lived experience perspectives followed by an informal Q&A with questions submitted in real time at the session. Panels are a fantastic engagement learning option to celebrate a special time like Pride, International Women’s Day, or Trans Day of Visibility. Panels also work well for large teams or to pre-record as an asynchronous training.
Example 2SLGBTQ+ topics:
Intro to 2SLGBTQIA+ Identities: Questioning, Coming Out, and Pronouns
Mental Health and 2SLGBTQIA+ Identities
Intersections of BIPOC and 2SLGBTQIA+ Identities
Internalized Homophobia and Loving Yourself
Example Gender Equity topics:
Unpacking Masculinity
Gendered Labour in the Caring Professions
Trans Inclusionary Girl Power
Debunking Rigid Gender Roles and Expectations
Workplace DEI Consulting
See what change can do.
Reframe is a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) training program that supports you no matter your starting point. With Reframe in your corner, you will have everything you need to build a thriving, just culture that drives success. Specializing in interactive, empathy-based learning & development, Reframe builds diverse, affirming, and inclusive companies.
Reframe was born out of the desire to provide sustainable funding for CANVAS. Learn more about why Reframe is a project of CANVAS »