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 strategic opportunities 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.
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 these 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.
Main objectives
Primary 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 targeted initiatives that advance social resiliency through strategic recommendations tailored to the City's priorities.
Secondary Objective (if there is time/capacity):
- Develop a reference tool to help staff understand how community partners are contributing to the City’s strategic goal of Fostering a Caring City, with the aim of supporting coordination, knowledge-sharing, and identifying potential opportunities for collaboration.
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).
- With the above-noted research findings, undertake a gap analysis on the City’s ‘Fostering a Caring City’ strategic plan goal area to identify if there are any gaps related to social resilience and, if so, provide recommendations for new initiatives to add to the City’s strategic plan that align with the city’s service delivery mandate.
Secondary Research Task (if there is time/capacity):
- Conduct an environmental scan of non-profit organizations within the region, working within the strategic plan goal area of Fostering a Caring City. At a minimum this should include a scan of faith-based organizations. Document the services/supports offered for each organization and key opportunities for knowledge-sharing and/or collaboration.
Deliverables
Primary Deliverables:
- Problem definition – research plan, semi-structured interview questions, survey instruments.
- Final report – report on the findings of the research and strategic recommendations.
Secondary Deliverable (if there is time/capacity):
- A systems map illustrating community partner organizations (at a minimum, faith-based organizations) engaged in activities that align with the City’s strategic plan goal of Fostering a Caring City, providing a visual framework to highlight key services/supports provided and potential areas for collaboration or knowledge-sharing.
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.