Past Events

On Oct. 19 and 20, 2026, SIRG held an on-campus two-day training event with Engage Rural, which includes organizations from the townships of Wilmot, Wellesley, Woolwich, and North Dumfries. The focus of the training was on addressing the specificity of rural services in homelessness and poverty issues.

In fall 2025 and spring 2026, SIRG hosted two-day training events with Waterloo Regional Police Services and Camino Wellbeing + Mental Health on issues relative to leadership, wellbeing, and poverty.

SIRG celebrated 20 years of community-based research and university-community collaboration on March 10 and 11, 2023 at the Faculty of Social Work. The anniversary featured a community awards ceremony for notable community members, a panel on the future of community engaged research, as well as provided an opportunity for past placement students and SIRG colleagues to reconnect.

Leaders from 45 different women's shelters in Ontario gathered at the FSW for an all-day symposium on leadership in women's services.

SIRG hosted a Poverty Symposium during Social Work Week to bring together Laurier students, staff, and faculty as well as community leaders and community partners around different issues surrounding poverty. The event opened with a theatre production of "Streetheart," performed by the Zaagi'idiwin Collective, followed by the keynote speaker, Dr. Jim Mulvale on basic income and a panel discussion on innovations to address poverty for older adults.

SIRG celebrated its 15th anniversary with FSW faculty, staff and students, community partners and past SIRG researchers. Community Social Justice awards were presented to outstanding leaders in our community. The recipients of this award were Jen Gordon, Michelle Buckner, Gebre Berihun, and Faith McCord.

In Fall 2018, MSW students in Ginette's SK690 course on social inequality and poverty organized the 1st Annual Poverty Forum at the Faculty of Social Work. Students presented their final projects in this forum on aging and older adults.

In a spirit of celebrating community engaged research, SIRG celebrated its 10th anniversary with alumni and community partners.

SIRG has hosted a number of garage sales at the Faculty of Social Work in order to create community amongst students, faculty, and staff, as well as raise funds for local agencies.

The Peace and Diversity conference engaged academics, students, and community partners to explore the importance of EDI within community development interventions.

SIRG invited Henry Giroux to the Faculty of Social Work to discuss his books, Education and the Crisis of Public Values: Challenging the Assault on Teachers, Students & Public Education (Peter Lang Publishing Inc., 2011) and Education and the Public Sphere: Ideas of Radical Pedagogy (Impulse, 2011).

SIRG organized a forum after the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. Panelists critically deconstructed the international aid and resulting efforts during the aftermath of the earthquake.

This was a project in tandem with the Portuguese community of Toronto exploring issues of EDI.

The project was a collaboration between SIRG and Planned Parenthood (now SHORE Centre) on women's sexual health.

Rob Davis was publicly honoured at this retirement celebration as a long-time partner with the Social Innovation Research Group and for his contributions in community policing.

SIRG celebrated its 5th anniversary as a community research group in tandem with alumni and community partners both past and present.

A delegation from Ottawa, Ontario, came to the FSW for a two-day training session on the management and development of cooperatives for Franco-Ontarian community groups interested in community economic development initiatives.