The Neighborhood Ambassador Program (NAP), launched by the Centre for Research and Innovation for Black Survivors of Homicide Victims (The CRIB) in 2023, employs community members who live and/or work in neighborhoods disproportionately impacted by homicide, to provide community outreach and support as well as to conduct research.
Globally, homicide disproportionately impacts Black communities, whose members are at an increased risk for negative mental and physical impacts. The CRIB’s NAP program model supports community based-solutions that are culturally tailored and trauma-informed.
The CRIB trains Neighbourhood Ambassadors (NAs) on how to conduct research and support vulnerable populations, including exposure to qualitative interviews and fieldwork, digital storytelling, Tri-Council research ethics protocols as well as support services and how to use them to be effective change agents in vulnerable communities. With their training, NAs can extend their expertise to research projects beyond those conducted by CRIB researchers that involve data collection with vulnerable Black communities in Canada and elsewhere.
Thus far, eight NAs have undergone the training and contributed to research studies conducted by the CRIB in neighborhoods like Toronto’s Regent Park, Rexdale, and Jane and Finch, as well as those of the CRIB’s partners, including researchers at the University of Michigan.
The CRIB’s approach is gaining policy makers’ attention including that of the Parole Board of Canada, which has asked the CRIB to host a national training seminar, as well as the US National Community on Violence Intervention (CVI), which has approached the CRIB to serve on its research roundtable.
In addition to support from U of T, the CRIB is supported by the Edwin S.H. Leong Centre for Healthy Children, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), the Anti-Racism Directorate of the Ministry of the Solicitor General and, most recently, the Australia-based Movember.