Brief description of the organization
The City of Kitchener is a forward-thinking municipal organization dedicated to serving its diverse and growing community. With approximately 2,000 employees across departments like infrastructure services, community services, development services, corporate services and financial services, the city operates with a strong focus on innovation, collaboration, and public service excellence.
Whether it's through strategic planning, digital transformation, or grassroots engagement, Kitchener strives to be responsive, transparent, and people-centred in everything it does. It’s not just a government—it’s a team working to shape a thriving, connected city.
Problem area
Central Research Question: To what extent does the City of Kitchener address social resilience in its current service delivery mandate, and what practical actions exist to strengthen social resilience through targeted initiatives?
Definition of Social Resilience: Social resilience refers to an individual’s and community’s ability to withstand, adapt to, and recover from challenges, disruptions, or changes – e.g., economic shifts, public health crises, climate events, or social tensions – while maintaining and strengthening social cohesion, inclusion/belonging, and overall well-being.
Social resilience as it relates to the City’s mandate: In the City of Kitchener, social resilience includes how municipal policies, programs, partnerships, and spaces are intentionally designed and delivered to strengthen residents' capacity to connect, adapt, and thrive in the face of challenges.
Based on Kitchener’s 2023–2026 Strategic Plan, the plan emphasizes fostering a caring city, advancing truth and reconciliation, enhancing engagement practices, and supporting inclusive programs and services - all of which are foundational to social resilience.
The City would like to explore the theme of social resilience further to understand if there is a gap in the City’s service delivery that needs to be addressed and, if so, what specific strategic initiatives/projects are required to address the gap(s).
What the City heard through their strategic plan mid-point check-in: Through community feedback received during the City’s recent mid-point check-in on their strategic plan, an emerging theme around ‘social resilience’ was identified as a priority for further exploration. Key challenges and opportunities identified are as follows:
Challenges:
- Increasing social polarization
- Emerging trend deprioritizing equity, diversity and inclusion
- Increase in racism
- Lost youth – unemployment, education gaps, or disengagement
- Distrust in the news and government
Opportunities:
- Fostering belonging and sense of community
- Leveraging faith-based services and supports
- Intergenerational community building
- Cultural inclusion
- Active community participation
- Reducing isolation/loneliness
Important: Students are not required to research and provide recommendations on all of the above-noted challenges and opportunities, but may wish to consider a cross-section of them (e.g., intergenerational community building, lost youth, isolation/loneliness, etc.). This can be discussed with City staff during the initial project phase.
Students may further define additional research questions, methodologies, and deliverables in collaboration with City staff during the initial project phase, if they wish to do so.
The central problem students will explore is how the City of Kitchener can move from understanding social resilience as an emerging community priority to identifying practical, municipal actions that strengthen residents’ ability to connect, adapt and thrive.
Students will examine where social resilience is already reflected in the City’s current services, programs, partnerships and strategic plan commitments, and where there may be gaps that could be addressed through specific initiatives, service improvements, partnerships, tools or pilot projects.
The project should result in clear, actionable recommendations that identify what the City could do, who may need to be involved, what community need or gap the action responds to, and how the action could support social cohesion, inclusion, belonging and well-being.
Main objectives
- Gain deeper understanding of the theme ‘social resilience’ and what role cities play within their service delivery mandate to support it.
- Gain a deeper understanding of any City of Kitchener service gaps within the theme of ‘social resilience’ that may warrant municipal intervention.
- Identify and propose practical actions that advance social resiliency through strategic recommendations tailored to the City's priorities.
Scope of work
Primary Research Tasks:
- Conduct a literature review on social resilience to build understanding of this theme area.
- Research the City of Kitchener’s core services and mandate.
- Review and understand the City’s strategic plan vision, goals and strategic initiatives (kitchener.ca/ourplan and kitchener.ca/ourplanprogress)
- Conduct an environmental scan of other municipalities across Ontario and identify if/how they are addressing/building social resiliency (as part of, and outside of, their strategic plans).
- Develop clear, actionable recommendations for targeted initiatives, service improvements, pilot projects, partnerships or tools that the City could consider implementing within its mandate.
- Provide enough implementation detail for each recommended action to help City staff understand the proposed next steps, potential partners, intended users or beneficiaries, and expected outcomes.
Deliverables
- Problem definition package — including a research plan, interview questions and/or survey tools that help identify where social resilience gaps exist and where municipal action may be appropriate.
- Gap analysis summary — a clear summary of where social resilience is already being addressed through City services, programs, spaces, partnerships and strategic plan commitments, and where additional action may be needed.
- Action recommendations — a prioritized list of practical actions the City could consider to strengthen social resilience. Each recommendation should include:
- the issue or gap being addressed;
- the proposed action;
- how it aligns with the City’s mandate and strategic plan;
- potential partners or collaborators;
- who the action is intended to benefit;
- key implementation considerations;
- expected outcomes or indicators of success.
- Final report and presentation — a concise report and presentation that summarize the research, explain the recommended actions, and support City staff in understanding what could be done next
Team meeting frequency
Bi-Weekly
Skills and training required
Research skills, analytical skills (e.g., interpreting and organizing large amounts of information into digestible and visual formats), oral communication skills (if employing semi-structured interviews), presentation skills (for final presentation), written communication skills.
Resources required
Information on core services, the strategic plan, and the city’s midway check-in report on the strategic plan.