An important aspect of Dr. Blanchet-Cohen’s research is the involvement of young people in building community resilience. In particular, she is interested in how opportunities for decision-making can be embedded into our communities, and how child-youth friendly spaces, places and systems can become more widespread. Dr. Blanchet-Cohen is also involved in finding out about the significance and application of practitioners adopting empowering practices that support young people’s well-being, in a society conventionally dominated by a deficit-based approach.

Throughout her career, her participation in various national and international initiatives have contributed to building the capacity of the multiple arenas that affect a young person’s live (i.e. municipal, federal, provincial, family, peers). More recently, she has been interested in using and learning from developmental approaches to evaluation in complex community initiatives that involve multiple stakeholders in social change.