In community, I move to curate connection by working alongside people rather than positioning myself  as an outside expert. Much of my work involves creating spaces where individuals who are often  separated by systems can meet one another with care, and shared responsibility. These spaces bring  together youth, families, clinicians, researchers, and community members, and are grounded in listening  rather than performance.

In community settings, I facilitate conversations that allow people to speak openly about care, safety,  grief, and belonging, particularly during moments of collective stress. These gatherings are not about  extracting stories or producing outcomes, but about building trust and shared understanding. In my  research and evaluation work, connection is built through participatory approaches that allow lived  experience to shape interpretation, direction, and meaning. 

I also curate connection by creating reflective spaces where power can be named and examined. This  includes peer spaces where students unpack power dynamics in education and shared learning spaces  where clinicians and community members reflect together on practice and systems. Across this work, I  try to remain attentive to when my voice needs to step forward and when it needs to step back. 

One moment that deeply shaped my approach was being invited back as a speaker for youth I had  previously worked alongside, not as an expert, but as someone whose path had been shaped by them.  That experience reinforced for me that connection is reciprocal and that meaningful collaboration  requires humility, patience and a willingness to be changed by the people you work with! 

Connection will remain central to my future work as a social worker, researcher, and community  advocate, not as a guiding concept but as a practical orientation. I have learned that work grounded in  relationships requires more time, more listening, and more accountability, especially when working  within systems that are not designed with racialized and immigrant families in mind. 

In my future path in social work, this means paying close attention to family relationships, cultural  context, and the ways care is distributed across siblings and generations. This also means recognizing  that healing is influenced by community connection through areas such as housing, work, migration  histories, and caregiving responsibilities, not just individual responses. In research, connection shapes  how I ask questions, how I interpret stories, and how I think about where findings belong once the work  is done. In advocacy work it means taking direction from lived experience, even when that complicates  timelines or institutional expectations. 

I do not see connection as something that simplifies change, but rather as a tool to introduce tension,  disagreement, and responsibility while keeping the work grounded. When people remain connected to  decisions that affect their lives, change may move more slowly but it is more likely to be responsive and sustained!