Let’s connect and network.
Let’s share and learn.
Let’s innovate and transform our shared knowledge into better outcomes for Ontario youth!
REX Virtual Café is an online community for Ontario’s youth sector stakeholders – youth workers (frontline and management), youth leaders, policy makers, and researchers – to connect, network, share, and find resources. The Virtual Café provides members with an opportunity to network with other youth sector stakeholders and participate in critical conversations in Communities of Practice (CoPs) on issues that can improve the wellbeing of youth.
The Virtual Café aims to:
- Build a community of youth sector stakeholders that overcomes geographical and organizational barriers of where in Ontario or at what agency or organization one works.
- Provide networking opportunities for youth stakeholders to build connections and network.
- Enable the sharing of ideas, innovative practices or best practices, tools and resources, and practical, how-to advice based on members’ lived and practice experiences in similar contexts. Members participate in various Communities of Practice focused on issues of relevance to youth wellbeing.
- Support members to collaborate with other members to create new knowledge to accomplish the overall aim of the Virtual Café, which is the transformation of members’ shared knowledge to better outcomes for Ontario youth!
REX Virtual Café is managed by Youth Research and Evaluation eXchange (YouthREX), a province-wide initiative based at the School of Social Work, York University. YouthREX’s vision is an Ontario where shared knowledge is transformed into positive impact for all youth. The Virtual Café is informed by ideas from a Design Day that YouthREX organized in October 2016, where youth workers prototyped a website/app/online space for youth workers to connect around advocacy and policy change, expand their network, and find resources, tips, and tools. They suggested that such a prototype would reduce feelings of isolation and help with self-care.
For more information about how to join the Virtual Café and what to expect as a member, please check out the following: