Bianca Braganza

Bianca is a second year JD/BCL student at McGill’s Faculty of Law and holds an Honours Bachelor of Health Sciences from Western University, and a Master of Science in Global Health from McMaster University. She grew up in Toronto, and is passionate about children and youth access to education and justice, as well as the intersection of health, economic development, community building and resilience, and the law.

Bianca worked with the City of Toronto to examine how mental health resources and models from the Jane-Finch community can be replicated and sustained.

Community Engagement Initiative

Bianca hosted an interactive zoom session with 24 youth from the Jane-Finch community to learn what challenges in mental and physical health the youth were facing, and what changes they could foresee in their community to make better, lasting change in community violence and trauma. The findings were shared back with the City of Toronto to inform their community safety plan. Read the report: Community Healing and Youth Rights in Jane and Finch.

Report

Community Violence, Trauma and Healing in the Jane and Finch Community

The Jane and Finch community is situated within a region located in the Northwest region of the city of Toronto, and is one that experiences systemic racism, state violence, and oppression. This manifests in the form of community violence, community trauma, and mental illness. Grassroots initiatives like the Mental Health First Aid training, conducted by community members for community members, as well as other peer-led initiatives such as the Community Healing Project, are programs and initiatives that exemplify the power of healing and resilience-building from within the community. This report will examine these community-led initiatives and use narrative data derived from MHFA, Community Healing Project as well as the City of Toronto’s Community Safety Forums as a source of knowledge for building and increasing the ability of the City of Toronto to implement successful programming that is culturally appropriate, and to build a plan to create a trauma-informed response to community safety and community violence. 

Keywords

Community violence, community trauma, healing, youth engagement, capacity building, mental health, Toronto, Jane Finch