Job Posting: Community Based Researcher - Becket

Choices for Youth (CFY) is a youth-focused professional service, non-profit charitable organization that creates space for conversations, operates youth programming and operates several social enterprises to support vulnerable youth secure stable housing, employment, and education while improving health and family stability. With a focus on prevention, intervention, and support, we help youth and their families break cycles of poverty and homelessness and transition to healthy, stable, and independent lives.

CFY proudly hosts the Becket, the Newfoundland and Labrador Integrated Youth Service (IYS) initiative, helping ensure youth and families across the province can access the right supports, in the right place, at the right time.

We are seeking to hire one Community Based Researcher to join our Becket team. Becket is a provincial initiative that brings together youth, families, service providers, and community partners to co-design and deliver accessible, youth-centered mental health and wellness services across Newfoundland and Labrador.

Position Summary

The Community-Based Researcher will play a key role in strengthening research, evaluation, and community engagement across the Becket network. This position ensures that local voices and lived experiences shape services, evaluation processes, and ongoing system development. This position plays a key role in ensuring local research and evaluation activities directly inform continuous learning, system development, and improved outcomes across the Becket network.

Working as part of the Becket Research and Evaluation Team, the Community-Based Researcher will support community-driven research, evaluation, and data collection at multiple Becket hubs. The role combines research, participatory methods, and engagement activities to ensure youth, families, staff and community partners are central to Becket planning, implementation, and continuous learning. This would include developing and implementing local surveys, facilitating focus groups and other community engagement.

ROLES & RESPONSIBILITIES

Community Engagement & Knowledge Mobilization

• Build and maintain trusting relationships with youth, families, service providers, and community partners to ensure research reflects lived experience.

• Facilitate focus groups, workshops, and other participatory activities (both online and in-person) to capture community perspectives and ensure lived experience informs Becket planning and evaluation.

• Conduct interviews, surveys, and participatory activities to capture community perspectives.

• Ensure community voices directly inform program development, research design, and evaluation processes.

• Support the co-design, implementation and evaluation of Becket hubs alongside youth and community partners.

• Translate findings into accessible materials (infographics, summaries, presentations) for youth, families, and community stakeholders.

• Collaborate with youth, families, and local partners to identify research priorities that reflect community needs.

Research and Evaluation

• Contribute to the design, implementation, and evaluation of community-based research projects at Becket hubs.

• Be the primary point of liaison for the university-based research coordinator

• Analyze qualitative and quantitative data related to youth services, mental health, and community well-being.

• Develop “What We Heard” reports, evaluation briefs, and community feedback summaries.

• Support evaluation frameworks that measure accessibility, equity, cultural safety, and effectiveness of Becket initiatives.

• Collaborate with site Data Leads to ensure consistent and actionable evaluation metrics across sites.

• Contribute to provincial and national Becket research and evaluation reporting.

• Uphold ethical research practices, including informed consent, confidentiality, and data sovereignty.

Collaboration & Capacity Building

• Work closely with the Becket Research Lead, University-Based Research Team, Site Coordinators, Indigenous organizations, and academic partners to strengthen community-driven research capacity.

• Support cross-site knowledge exchange and collaborative learning initiatives.

• Build local capacity by mentoring staff or partners on implementation science, participatory research methods, data collection, and knowledge translation.

• Mentor and support youth and family co-researchers where applicable.

• Participate in team meetings and learning sessions to support continuous improvement and system development.

• Collaborate with university-based, provincial and national IYS evaluation teams to align local efforts with broader frameworks.

QUALIFICATIONS AND EXPERIENCE

• Post Secondary degree in social work, sociology, community development, public health, psychology, or a related field; or equivalent combination of education and experience.

• 1-3 years’ experience in community-based research, community engagement, or program evaluation.

• Familiarity with implementation science or a willingness to learn.

• Demonstrated experience conducting interviews, focus groups, or surveys.

• Strong communication, facilitation, and relationship building skills.

• Excellent writing, qualitive research skills, and reporting abilities

•  Understanding of participatory and youth-engaged research methods.

• Proficiency with Microsoft Office, qualitative research analysis tools, and digital collaboration tools (Teams, Zoom, etc.)

• Ability to travel within Newfoundland and Labrador.

COMPENSATION

The salary for this position will be $50,480.82 – $56,089.80 annually. CFY offers a competitive compensation package, including: a health and dental program, employer-matched RRSP and four weeks’ vacation to qualifying employees.

WORK HOURS

Regular hours of work for this position are Monday to Friday (37.5 hours per week). Flexibility in work hours will be required to accommodate higher work volumes and organizational requirements, including occasional and emergent need to work evenings and weekends. Hours worked more than regular hours will be accounted for in accordance with the overtime provisions of the Personnel, Policy, and Procedure Manual of CFY and the Labour Standards Act NL. The Impact Measurement and Engagement team supports a hybrid work environment.

HOW TO APPLY:

Choices for Youth appreciates all applications; however, only those selected for an interview will be contacted. Please submit your cover letter and resume explaining how you meet the criteria and use CBR-0126 in the subject line to the recipients below.

Matthew Cooper, Manager of Impact Measurement and Engagement. mcooper@choicesforyouth.ca

Recruitment Lead; recruitment@choicesforyouth.ca

Reference ID: CBR-0126

Application Deadline: January 27^th, 2026

Choices for Youth (CFY) strives towards a culture of inclusion and empowerment, one where there’s a sense of belonging and safety while prioritizing diversity across the organization, including in its Board of Directors composition, employment practices, staff, policies, programming, and services. CFY values lived and living experience and invites everyone interested to apply for available opportunities. CFY actively seeks applications from Indigenous Peoples; members of Black, racialized, and other equity-seeking and/or religious, cultural, and other communities; members of the 2SLGBTQIA+ community; people with disabilities; and people from a variety of social and economic backgrounds. Should you require support or accommodation(s) to better enable your ability to participate in the employment or recruitment process, please let us know at any point. This information will be kept confidential.

To view all current job postings, please visit http://www.choicesforyouth.ca/join-cfy