Our Community Partners
Strong communities are built through strong partnerships.
The Inclusive Futures Initiative is grateful to the many community organizations, researchers, students, service providers, and families who contribute to this work. Together, we build relationships, share knowledge, and work toward creating more inclusive and accessible communities.
Our partnerships are built on mutual respect, collaboration, and a shared commitment to improving the lives of immigrant, refugee, and newcomer families raising children, youth, and young adults with neurodevelopmental disabilities.
Our Partners
Multicultural Health Brokers Cooperative (MCHB)
Through staff and volunteers, MCHB is a lived-experience organization of people from immigrant and refugee communities that work to bridge the gaps between newcomer families and Canadian society.
- Serves 23 cultural/language communities
- Offers inter-cultural competency training for government organizations, service providers, and companies
- Supports culturally-responsive practice and policy development in government and community organizations
- Focuses on prevention, and broad determinants of health
- Offers holistic supports – working with families in a manner that respects their individual strengths, challenges and circumstances
Services and Programming:
- Food security and grocery supports
- Parenting groups and support groups
- Peri-natal health
- Programs and services specifically for the Chinese community
- Interpreters, language supports, and language classes
- Intercultural Family Resource Network
Edmonton Newcomer Centre
The Newcomer Centre works with up to 10,000 newcomers each year, from all parts of the world, out of two locations and various community locations in the Edmonton area. They currently have about 230 staff, that together, speak and offer service in over 25 languages.
- Employment services
- Language services
- Settlement services
- Community services
Services and Programming:
- Case management
- Legal aid and healthcare
- Navigating immigration and settlement
- Food security, grocery support, cooking classes and life skills development
- 2SLGBTQQIA+ supports for migrants
- Mental health and counselling services
- Youth focused supports and programming
- C5 Collaborative Hubs and Community Market
Bright Light Multicultural Centre
Bright Light supports migrant youth with disabilities and their families and caregivers to access programming that is shaped by cultural understanding, trust, belonging and dignity.
Bright Light walks alongside 40+ cultural communities, which includes more than 500 families served over the last ten years.
Services and Programming:
- Day programs
- Respite care
- Consultation
- Rehabilitation
- Skills Training
MultilinguAbilities
Multilinguabilities supports families in honoring, mapping and preserving native languages and cultural heritage through embedded intercultural practices with early language speaking.
They also celebrate neurodiversity within an intercultural understanding, and combine multiple disciplines to tailor programming to each family. Multilinguabilities believes in fostering a collaborative alliance between parents and specialists, including artistic ways of understanding identity and culture.
Services and Programming:
- Pediatric speech pathology
- Family coach support
- Occupational therapy and sensory integration
- Behaviour consultation and strategy
Multilingual Families LAB/familles multilingues LAB
The Multilingual Language Program began in 2016 and have been providing the program to children and their families ever since. MLP works with community partners to bring together children and their parents, identifying stories, crafts, and activities that are culturally and linguistically responsive. Each group is unique – we adapt the Multilingual Language Program to support the children’s communication across all the languages they know.
Social Impact Collective formerly Edmonton Social Planning Council
Social Impact Collective conducts research and analyzes data, produces reports, provides recommendations, provides public education, conducts focus groups, does presentations, and works collaboratively with other social agencies. Their work includes undertaking research into the nature and magnitude of social issues in our community; public awareness and understanding of current social issues; being an independent voice in the community; encouraging public participation in the development of social policies and the implementation of programs.
Interested in Partnering With Us?
We welcome opportunities to collaborate with organizations that share our commitment to accessibility, inclusion, community engagement, and meaningful research.