PSA: Druwitt is growing! We’re entering an exciting new chapter as this work, continued partnerships, and the portfolios continue to evolve. This website is currently being refreshed to better reflect the ongoing efforts. You may notice a few changes along the way- more is coming soon!

Druwitt works alongside communities to build stronger systems for at-risk children and youth. Founded by Kathryn (Katie) Manning-Druwitt in 2024, Druwitt brings 20 years of professional experience and lifelong lived experience across complex communities throughout Western Canada and the United States on Turtle Island. Her experience spans private, public, and non-profit sectors, giving the project teams a unique and grounded lens into how different parts of a community work together and where systems can become disconnected.

Today, Druwitt is dedicated and focused solely on at-risk children and youth through community safety, upstream prevention, and systems change. Katie works with trusted leaders across non-profits, municipalities, community partners, and alongside young people to connect the dots, break down silos, and build stronger ways of working together. Druwitt's work is grounded in what is actually happening in communities; taking frontline realities, lived experience, and neighbourhood knowledge and translating them into practical strategies, stronger systems, and collaborative approaches that create meaningful, long-term change.

The village modality has been lost in many modern urban environments. Druwitt's work is about bringing it back. Children and youth do not grow up within one organization or one system. They grow up in communities. Their lives cross families, schools, neighbourhoods, community organizations, health systems, governments, public safety, recreation and informal networks of people who know and care about them. Each person has their own mosaic landscape of life. When those pieces are connected, foundations are stronger. When they become fragmented, children and youth can fall through the spaces between them. Druwitt works to strengthen those connections and enhance the community ecosystem already in place.

Across People, Place and Systems, Druwitt applies a trilectical approach, recognizing that children and youth thrive when the people, communities and systems around them work together. Our work is grounded in three core practice lenses:

1. Universal Design: Creating environments where every child and young person can learn, participate, belong and thrive.
2. Place-Based Practice: Building on the strengths, relationships, cultures and knowledge within the communities where children and youth live and grow.
3. Trauma-Informed Care: Understanding how adversity and trauma affect children, families and the systems around them, while creating environments rooted in safety, trust, choice and connection.

Three Service Areas:

1. Strategic Consulting & Systems Change:  Support organizations, municipalities, and community initiatives navigating complex issues affecting children and youth. Druwitt work includes systems analysis, strategic planning, policy development, implementation planning, partnership development, research, and collaborative strategy. We strive to help make complexity easier to understand and turn what communities are seeing into practical next steps.
2. Fractional Leadership & Organizational Support: Druwitt provides experienced leadership and strategic capacity to organizations during periods of growth, transition, or complex project delivery. We can embed within an organization or initiative to support strategy, partnerships, stakeholder engagement, project development, implementation, and cross-sector collaboration.
3. Community Forums, Engagement & Facilitation: The people closest to a community often already know where the challenges are and what needs to change. Druwitt will strategically design and facilitate community forums, youth engagement, stakeholder consultations, cross-sector tables, or targeted collaborative planning processes that bring those perspectives together for a goal and shared outcome. Our role is to listen for patterns, connect perspectives, identify gaps, and help turn community knowledge into action.

Looking Ahead: Druwitt continues to invest in new approaches to community safety and upstream prevention for children and youth. Our next major internal portfolios include LEEL (Lived Experience Expert Leadership) training, focused on strengthening and supporting lived-experience leadership, and The Archer Project, a Canadian prevention-focused initiative centred on strengthening the communities and systems surrounding children before crisis happens. More details soon!

If your organization or community is working through a complex challenge affecting children and youth, we'd love to hear from you. Druwitt works best where there are dots to connect, silos to break down, and people ready to build something stronger together.