What is a Civic Labs by CDH Experience?
A Civic Lab experience is more than a workshop — it’s a collaborative journey. Over two days, you will:
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Learn Together - Understand the foundations of a new topic, skill and/or practice
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Hear from Community Voices/Experts - Enhance your understanding through local stories and expert sharing
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Innovate Together - Work alongside peers to name community challenges and find innovative solutions
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The learning doesn't stop there. After the Civic Lab you have access to a community of practice to keep the learning and connection going!
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What is a Civic Labs by CDH publication?
An opportunity to read about important community topics, relevant theories and/or practices. Each publication is infused with community voices on those topics. Read recommendations and then follow along for connected activities and forums for you to share your own experiences and learn and innovate with others in community.
Upcoming Civic Lab Events
A two-day interactive workshop introducing Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD) principles and tools to strengthen civic engagement and develop new strategies for community building.
Join the Halton Housing Advocacy Network for a working meeting to continue our advocacy work on Monday, March 2nd, 2026:
Coming soon: Civic Labs by CDH on Generative Storytelling!
Civic Labs Podcast
Formerly the Community Data Watch Podcast, this new iteration will feature broader conversations that will include, but are not limited to, local data and community stories, community initiatives, leaders, and perspectives from lived experience.
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The Belonging Project
This project has been a year-long deep dive into experiences of belonging across Halton in partnership with our friends at Grandmother’s Voice, Our Kids Network (OKN), the Halton
Diversity & Equity Roundtable (HEDR), and Community Development Halton (CDH).​
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Together we explored what belonging meant to each of us as community members, advocates, researchers, and community developers. We established a survey (760 responses) and stories project on our blog page to collect the experiences of our neighbours across our region and hosted a
forum to explore the themes and trends together in community.
Out of the stories we pulled out key themes that reflected the dimensions of belonging and the way that they intersect and influence lived experience.
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Here are some of the quotes:​
"Just come as you are, you know? There's a joy that spreads from one person to another. And I think we could use a braver and more invitational society."
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"To me, belonging means feeling seen, valued, and truly connected. It matters so much because I believe that, at our core, we are meant to move through life together, not alone."​
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Youth Engagement Research Project
From March 2025 to February 2026, CDH engaged 10 youth volunteers in the Youth Engagement Research Project. The project explored the facilitators and barriers to the Ontario Secondary School Diploma (OSSD) 40-hour community involvement requirement.
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This requirement came into effect in 1999, and has never been evaluated in the history of the requirement! To the best of our knowledge, this project was the first evaluation of this youth-centric policy across Canada, and definitely the first evaluation that engaged youth int he leadership of the reserach project.
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Our report comes out soon, see left for some of the graphics by made with the data we found and Power BI!
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RSVP for FREE to our February 18th (in-person) and February 26th (online) presentations to community, including a presentation from the youth, a Q&A period with the team, and an interactive policy lab!
Housing Advocacy
Out of our first ever National Right to Housing Day Forum in November 2024, a Housing Advocates group made up of friends and neighbours across faith communities came together. Together with community partners and neighbours, this growing coalition has taken part in letter writing campaigns, elections advocacy, council delegations, documenting the impacts of housing legislation, and creating connections with developers and decision makers across Halton.​
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​As Halton's capacity builder, CDH continues to support the efforts of this growing coalition as it works to ensure the right to housing for all. In February 2026, 3 youth volunteers joined the growing community of engaged citizens and volunteers to help support!
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Join our March 2nd, 2026 Working Call at 10am and 6pm!
We've created three different working groups that you can self-elect into:
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YIMBYism and Storytelling
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NIMBYism
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Municipal Election Engagement
