Christiane trained as a Community Psychologist and was the 2018 recipient of the American Psychological Association's (APA) Society for Community and Practice (SCRA) Award for Distinguished Contribution to Practice in Community Psychology. She led the Waterloo Region Crime Prevention Council for over 25 years. Specializing in Crime Prevention through Social and Community Development, she is very skilled at helping communities have difficult conversations in order to move forward. Her processes and techniques are applicable to many social issues and focus on developing consensus, valuing diversity and building understanding. Christiane is passionate about prevention and believes that micro changes to the status quo don't make for better solutions to complex social issues.
Christiane trained as a Community Psychologist and was the 2018 recipient of the American Psychological Association's (APA) Society for Community and Practice (SCRA) Award for Distinguished Contribution to Practice in Community Psychology. She led the Waterloo Region Crime Prevention Council for over 25 years. Specializing in Crime Prevention through Social and Community Development, she is very skilled at helping communities have difficult conversations in order to move forward. Her processes and techniques are applicable to many social issues and focus on developing consensus, valuing diversity and building understanding. Christiane is passionate about prevention and believes that micro changes to the status quo don't make for better solutions to complex social issues.
Zoë builds love and laughter into each and every one of our days. From ensuring adequate exercise and recreation to spreading affection to ensuring that no one takes things too seriously, Zoë is positively indefatigable. Her principles that now inform ours include: always look after the pack; keep all doors open; love, laugh and play every day; respect each other's needs and boundaries. Always greet your fellow beings because they could be your next friend. And never forget that the next treat is usually just around the corner.
Zoë builds love and laughter into each and every one of our days. From ensuring adequate exercise and recreation to spreading affection to ensuring that no one takes things too seriously, Zoë is positively indefatigable. Her principles that now inform ours include: always look after the pack; keep all doors open; love, laugh and play every day; respect each other's needs and boundaries. Always greet your fellow beings because they could be your next friend. And never forget that the next treat is usually just around the corner.
Holt trained as a Community Psychologist at Wilfrid Laurier University following undergrad degrees in Fine Arts - Theatre (Brock University) and Psychology (University of Windsor). After belatedly recognizing that he would starve trying to work in the theatre, he began his community career in research on Prevention of Violence Against Women and Outcome Research for a program supporting Adult Survivors of Childhood Trauma. From there, Holt moved into education (as an Attendance Counsellor) and the non-profit sector. For over 20 years in non-profits, Holt worked in the area of crime prevention and response services, housing and homelessness, supportive housing and general supports for adults with moderate to significant mental health concerns, child welfare supports and supports to adults with developmental divers-abilities. In addition to his work with More Better Solutions, Holt currently works at a non-profit in Victoria, BC.
Holt trained as a Community Psychologist at Wilfrid Laurier University following undergrad degrees in Fine Arts - Theatre (Brock University) and Psychology (University of Windsor). After belatedly recognizing that he would starve trying to work in the theatre, he began his community career in research on Prevention of Violence Against Women and Outcome Research for a program supporting Adult Survivors of Childhood Trauma. From there, Holt moved into education (as an Attendance Counsellor) and the non-profit sector. For over 20 years in non-profits, Holt worked in the area of crime prevention and response services, housing and homelessness, supportive housing and general supports for adults with moderate to significant mental health concerns, child welfare supports and supports to adults with developmental divers-abilities. In addition to his work with More Better Solutions, Holt currently works at a non-profit in Victoria, BC.
Our values tell you a lot about who we are. We believe in:
Equity – because paying attention to all of the subtle and soul-destroying mechanisms that cause inequity is essential to achieving social justice.
Collaboration – because better solutions come from learning from each other and riffing off of each other’s creativity. Building community isn’t about individuals; it’s about the collective.
Diversity – because much like collaboration, a variety of perspectives and approaches makes for better decision-making. It also makes life more interesting and fun.
Courage – because we don’t see enough of it in the world. Those who do difficult things in respectful ways are critical to changing systems… and they embody the courage to which we aspire.
Compassion – because you can’t have compassion without empathy. And without compassion and empathy you can’t hear the community voices that make change necessary and possible.
Integrity – because trust is built through WYSIWYG: What you see is what you get. It is vital for community building that our actions match our words.
There are more, but these are the biggies. We don’t believe that the world can become a better place without them and we strive to live them every day.
With over 30 years of service in 
government and non-profits, we’re ready to help you solve your problems and thrive into the future. We’ve worked in municipal government, with Non-Profits, specializing in crime prevention through social development, we’ve also worked in mental health, addictions, child welfare, education, community corrections, employment and the arts. We work to help communities and organizations build themselves, amplify often unheard voices and develop confidence in finding creative approaches to complex social issues. The status quo is not where we live.
More Better Solutions has been instrumental in providing us with incredible expertise and guidance around child, youth and family engagement programs that help build safe, supportive communities. Christiane is a subject matter expert, an excellent presenter and a skilled facilitator.
Christiane’s professionalism and expertise helped to contribute to strong results. Her guidance, deep understanding and appreciation for the importance of relationships and local context, and compassion were extraordinary and much appreciated by the full project team.
In our coaching meetings, Christiane quickly established a supportive and inspiring dynamic that nurtured my personal and professional development. Her attentive coaching style helped me to take pride in my unique set of strengths but also to understand and compensate for my weak points, leaving me with a stronger approach to community development that is more self-aware, intentional, and confident.
Christiane was pivotal in the development of Kelowna’s first-ever Community Safety Plan. The depth of her knowledge and expertise, as well as her unwavering dedication and commitment to the final product, was remarkable.
Christiane is recognized as a national leader in crime prevention, and municipal leadership in community safety. From her pioneering work in Waterloo, and her constant thirst to research, listen and learn, she has developed tremendous expertise and credibility. She is adept at translating vision and ideas into a tangible strategic plan that is achievable. Among her many talents is an innate ability to delicately lead discussions on challenging topics, to reframe and redirect sticking points, and to build collaborative, systems-based thinking and approaches. We are deeply appreciative of the work that Christiane did for the City of Kelowna on this initiative.
Your achievements in this community, across the country and internationally are far greater than a "thank you" can ever recognize. But, since our language doesn't offer us many other ways of saying it, here's a great big "thank you" to you for all of your creativity, imagination, ability to lead from behind, to connect with everyone, your humility, and your dogged hard work!
It has been such a privilege to have been your colleague from almost the beginning of the Crime Prevention Council and to have been a part of the movement and its many initiatives over the years.
During the process of developing a Community Safety & Well-Being (CSWB) Plan for the City of Regina, our team had the pleasure of working alongside Christiane. What became clear very quickly was not only Christiane’s deep technical knowledge of safety and well-being approaches and practices in communities across Canada, but more importantly her strong desire to listen and learn, which was demonstrated in her work alongside staff, stakeholders, and community members in Regina. I am privileged to have met Christiane, and have benefited greatly from her mentorship.
I met Christiane many years ago as she was attending an international crime prevention conference. I was struck immediately by the depth of her listening and the quality of her responses. Never pat, never hasty or dismissive, she responded on target and totally tailored to those to whom she was speaking. And she could do this in a way that was acceptable even if there was disagreement.
Subsequently I keynoted one of her conferences and had the opportunity to meet with her staff. As someone who had built and run organizations large and small in the United States, good staff vibes, mutual respect, shared mission and hard work were all readily apparent.
The rarest of leaders, she never lost sight of her mission. Many entities lose their way because they start serving the institution rather than the institution’s reason for being. Her “clients,” were always front and center, she anchoring her work around them, not her.
If you want help from a leader in this field, look no further.
Thank you for your 25 years of inspirational leadership and demonstrated commitment to fairness, equality and justice.
Warmest wishes as you head into what I am certain will be an equally bright future. I join your legion of fans and supporters as I send you tons of appreciation and gratitude.
I can't begin to thank you enough for all that you did for Waterloo Region when you took on the Crime Prevention Council. No one pulled together so many grassroots people and organizations and kept them engaged for these many years - something almost unheard of in today's world. You engaged people and staff and gave the Region a face in the community. In doing so, the Region and the work gained national attention and we (mostly you) were the Go To group for others trying to do similar work in Canada.
On a personal note, many German speaking people never knew you were my (unofficial) translator who never failed me. Thanks for your friendship and all the best on the road ahead.
Christiane - thank you so much for your leadership in helping to make our community safer. Your diligence in maintaining the mission has truly made a difference in our Region. It is your caring nature and persistence that convinced so many community partners to join in a common goal of making our community one of the most outstanding places in Canada to live and grow.
I have had the pleasure to work with Christiane as both her staff and colleague. Two of the best qualities that she possesses is that she will always speak the truth. Before anything, Chris operates from a place of truth and integrity and she does not compromise that for anything. It is this quality that allows Chris to sit in her truth and be respected for it.
Secondly, Chis is a compassionate leader who has a keen sense of how systems operate, how they can disenfranchise the most marginalized and lead organizations to address these issues at the root, in order to achieve justice and equity. My development as a person and professional is directly linked to the support, supervision and investment Chris made in me.
Christiane, your curiosity, energy, tenacity, integrity, empathy, leadership, love, care and skill have changed our community and many other communities, and made us understand concepts of collaboration, partnership, patience, timing and always respect. There is more to you than these gifts. You have given us light, shown the community the gift of leadership from behind in social development and taught us to trust in our partners and in our community. Through highs and lows you have steered WRCPC with the same tools: integrity, courage, vision, respect, commitment and always authenticity.
We have shared such wonderful moments over the last twenty five years of working together as the community has been changed by you. We have all been enlightened by your knowledge and leadership.
Words seem a futile way of thanking you, our community's gratitude to you is seen in the health of the pieces you have touched around us all.
For 25 years, Christiane brought vision, expertise and tremendous passion to multi-sectoral issues of crime prevention. Before ‘social determinants of health’, ‘wellbeing’ and the UN Sustainable Development Goals were generally accepted concepts, Christiane was pioneering a community-based, collaborative, multi-disciplinary approach to prevent crime, fear of crime and victimization by addressing the root causes. Christiane’s efforts both informed and improved public policy and programming across the continent, and indeed, around the world.
At WRCPC, Christiane built and operationalized a collaborative model encompassing the wisdom of community, municipal governments, not for profit organizations and other stakeholders, drawing from the vision of WRCPC’s founders that crime and victimization is often best addressed outside of enforcement, courts and corrections. Not only did she create the frame-breaking model, she modelled the values of integrity, collaboration, commitment, courage, and compassion. She showed us all that preventing crime and victimization could be our collective new normal. She strengthened our resolve in driving systems change toward equity.
As Founding Co-Chair of the Canadian Municipal Network for Crime Prevention, Christiane facilitated cutting-edge initiatives, inspired new collaborations and set bold standards. Her work has been presented acfross the country and her contributions have been recognized provincially, nationally and internationally.
While upstream prevention, community engagement, social justice and the inclusion of people with lived and living experience becoming more widely accepted principles today, these were part of Christiane’s core model from the beginning. She inspired countless people, organizations, and governments to look beyond status quo approaches, embrace innovation, and drive toward equity for everyone.
An African proverb that says “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” Somehow, Christiane managed to do both by building progressive collaborations of citizens and organizations and governments across all sectors, and across all socio-economic strata. We wish to thank Christiane for her wisdom, integrity and leadership - and for the extraordinary legacy she leaves us.
So we’re back here again. Modern western society sees activity or behaviour that makes it angry or uncomfortable and we leap to using “force” to solve that social dissonance. “Lock them up” becomes the rallying cry of the unimaginative, the impatient or the simply intolerant. The voice of those in the middle of society that are doing …
