Brantford Local Immigration Partnership Community Plan 2026-2028

The Centre for Community Based Research (CCBR) worked in collaboration with the Municipality of Brantford to support the Brantford Immigration Partnership (BIP) in developing a new strategic plan for 2026–2028. The BIP, comprising 22 Council members, serves as Brantford’s local immigration partnership and plays a vital role in advancing settlement and integration efforts for newcomers. The project focused on collaboratively developing a forward-looking strategic plan that built on the strengths of BIP’s existing four foundational pillars while responding to the evolving needs and priorities of newcomers in Brantford.

The primary purpose of the project was to guide the development of BIP’s new strategic plan by engaging with Council members. CCBR aimed to identify current and emerging settlement trends, assess the relevance and effectiveness of BIP’s existing strategic framework, and co-create updated a vision statement, priority action areas, and intended outcomes, to reflect Brantford’s current context.

CCBR led a participatory, evidence-informed process that included document review, stakeholder engagement, and facilitated workshops. the perspectives of Council members and local newcomers?

To address these questions, CCBR conducted a comprehensive document review in collaboration with BIP Staff. The review included internal materials such as BIP’s evaluation reports, Council survey data, and the previous strategic plan, as well as external documents like community needs assessments and recent demographic data.

Findings from the document review informed the design of two facilitated workshops with BIP Council members. The first workshop focused on sharing insights from the review and generating discussion on the strategic direction of BIP. The second workshop provided an opportunity to refine and validate the draft Community Plan and develop a new vision statement

Throughout the process, CCBR maintained regular check-ins with BIP Staff to ensure alignment, transparency, and responsiveness. The final deliverable was a concise, accessible, and visually engaging Community Plan outlining BIP’s updated vision statement, priority action areas and intended outcomes for 2026–2028.