STAFF
Meet the Team
Making the Shift values diverse, educational, professional, and lived experiences. We are person-centred, equity-minded, action-oriented, and evidence-based.
Stephen Gaetz
Scientific Director
Stephen's Bio
Stephen Gaetz (President & CEO, Canadian Observatory on Homelessness) is the MtS Scientific Director (SD) responsible for research excellence and financial accountability, ensuring a fair and equitable process for creating Requests for Proposals (RFPs), distributing funds across themes, and adjudicating proposals.
Melanie Redman
Partnership & Implementation Director
Melanie's Bio
Melanie Redman is the co-founder, President & CEO of A Way Home Canada, a national coalition reimagining solutions to youth homelessness through transformations in policy, planning and practice. A Way Home Canada has inspired communities and countries around the world to adopt the A Way Home brand as a way to participate in a growing international movement for change. Melanie leads the National Learning Community on Youth Homelessness in Canada, which is a pan-Canadian community of practice for youth homelessness service providers. Melanie is also the co-founder and Partnership and Implementation Director for the Making the Shift Youth Homelessness Social Innovation Lab, which is a Government of Canada Research Tri-Council Networks of Centres of Excellence. Since 2021, Making the Shift has held the designation as a Geneva UN Charter Centre of Excellence.
Katie Davies Jorgensen
Chief Operating Officer
Katie's Bio
Katie Davies Jorgensen is the Chief Operating Officer at Making the Shift. She joins us from Trellis Society for Community Impact, where she had a long history of leading innovative solutions to prevent and end youth homelessness as well as other complex social challenges. Her background in leadership, change management and not-for-profit management as well as MA in Psychology will be valuable additions to our collective work.
Abisola Olaniyi
Research Services Officer
Abisola's Bio
Abi is passionate about research, community and international development. She is motivated by principles of equity and learning. Abi is keen to use her project management, research, communication and administrative skills to support the work of Making the Shift. Abi has a variety of experiences in the non-profit and education sectors. Abi holds a B.S. in Psychology from the University of Toronto and completed her post-graduate from Humber College in International Development.
Amanda Buchnea
Manager, UNECE Toronto Centre of Excellence (TCE) on Youth Homelessness Prevention
Amanda's bio
Amanda (she/her) is the Manager of the UNECE designated Toronto Centre of Excellence (TCE) on Youth Homelessness Prevention at York University. Amanda develops and manages strategic international partnerships to put youth homelessness and prevention on policy agendas in Canada and abroad. Prior to joining Making the Shift, Amanda worked with A Way Home Canada for over 5 years, primarily as the Policy and Planning Coordinator. She holds an Honours B.A. in Social Development Studies from Renison University College (University of Waterloo) and a Master of Public Policy from the University of Toronto. Amanda is also a PhD student at the University of Guelph in the Social Practice and Transformational Change interdisciplinary program.
Anna Jacob
Senior Manager, Finance and Compliance
Anna's Bio
Anna Jacob is responsible for ensuring robust financial management and compliance through the development and implementation of effective and efficient policies and procedures, facilitation of projects, budgeting, and annual financial and corporate reporting. Connect with Anna about any reporting, policy, budgetary, or financial matters.
April Xie
Manager, Communications and Training
April's Bio
April is responsible for executing MtS’s communications strategy, overseeing content development, and supporting development and delivery of training for practitioners, policymakers, and researchers to build their capacity for preventing youth homelessness. April holds a B.A. Hons from Western University and a M.Des from OCAD University. Connect with April around MtS communications platforms, learning opportunities, and training inquiries.
Elaine Laberge
Coordinator – MtS Scholars with Lived Experience (LivEx) Network
Elaine's bio
Elaine is a sociologist who focuses on poverty discrimination in Canadian universities and more broadly in society. Her research focuses on “poverty-class” students and demonstrates how universities can support them from the grassroots to structural level change. She is the founder of ShoestringInitiative.com which is the first-of-its-kind grassroots movement to support students from poverty in higher education. Elaine is a professional graphic designer who is known for her engaging knowledge mobilization and translation communication strategies and designs. She is a poet and aspiring playwright and documentary filmmaker. Elaine currently resides in Victoria with her cat Emma.
Pravina Palanisamy
Training Coordinator
Pravina's bio
Pravina (she/her) is responsible for planning and coordinating professional development programming and opportunities for research teams on MtS projects, including Undergraduate students, Masters Students, and Post-Doctoral fellows. Pravina holds a BA (Honours) from Ryerson University in Environmental and Urban Sustainability, and a post-graduate certificate from Seneca College in eLearning Development.
Victoria Jane Morgan
Executive Assistant
Victoria's bio
Victoria is our Executive Assistant, providing support to our Executive team and Board of Directors. A graduate of the University of Ottawa, Victoria brings over a decade of administrative experience to Making the Shift, including 6 years working with Not for Profit agencies serving the homeless sector in Alberta.
