Cristal Hines is an exceptional agency supervisor & consultant whose leadership style aligns seamlessly with our values. She is passionate, personable, knowledgeable, and deeply committed to maintaining high-quality standards across all areas of her work. She consistently ensures that programs are delivered with integrity, clinical depth, and responsiveness to the needs of both children and families. Her oversight strikes a thoughtful balance between structure and flexibility, allowing clinicians to deliver effective, high-quality interventions while feeling supported and guided, with respect for each child’s unique needs and group dynamics. A defining strength of Cristal’s role is the thoughtful, ongoing feedback she provides to both clinicians and our management team. Through regular clinical consultation, she offers clear, constructive coaching that builds clinical confidence, strengthens skill development, and supports reflective practice. Her collaborative and grounded approach helps clinicians translate theory into meaningful, real-world group facilitation. Equally important is Cristal’s leadership and confidence in connecting with parents and caregivers. She actively seeks and values parent feedback, ensuring family perspectives meaningfully inform program development and refinement. This strengthens program relevance and outcomes while reinforcing strong, trusting partnerships between families and clinicians. Overall, Cristal brings a high level of leadership, mentorship, and clinical insight to her work. Her coaching approach, commitment to clinician support, and strategic contributions to program development have elevated both our team and the services we provide. She is a vital leader whose influence is deeply felt and genuinely appreciated.

Cristal stepped into our project midway to facilitate a series of workshops for the Budget Toronto community consultations with racialized communities, aimed at garnering unique insight into the diverse needs of marginalized communities. The consultations brought together representatives from over 30 organizations, requiring thoughtful coordination and skilled facilitation to ensure diverse voices were meaningfully heard. With little time to prepare and get acclimated to the work, Cristal was an amazing addition to the team. She hit the ground running, learned the content quickly, and facilitated discussions on a technical subject matter in an accessible and engaging way. Workshop participants and other project team members had nothing but glowing remarks for Cristal’s professionalism, dedication, and adaptability. I am so grateful we were able to work with her and will always recommend her to anyone who asks. She takes her work seriously and understands care not just as a value, but as a practice.

Thank you so much for helping us to secure Cristal for the Webinar today. She is so knowledgeable (I felt like I was back in University!) and spoke from the heart on such an important topic. She gave us all a lot to think about. All the feedback I am receiving is so positive.

Power to Girls Foundation is a non-profit organization that works to support and empower Black and marginalized girls across the GTA and Ghana to realize their full potential by providing programs and resources for personal development, mentorship, mental health and wellness. For our 2022 Roots of a Girl event, held every year in February to celebrate Black History and the wonderful young Black girls in our program and the community, we reached out to Cristal to see if she would be interested in doing a spoken word. There was no hesitation on her end; her willingness and dedication came through immediately. I had the privilege of hearing Cristal speak at one of her past e-camp mentorship engagements, so I knew we were in for a treat; this time was no different. She came on time, was prepared, and when she spoke, everyone was engaged. There is no doubt that you can tell that she is passionate about what she does in the way she carries herself and interacts with others. This summer of 2022, our goal was to update our app to have an educational section where girls can view the resources and learn from various topics. Having a sense of Cristal's educational and work background, we knew she would be a great fit to create video content for our app. Once again, when I reached out, Cristal showed enthusiasm and was eager to learn more about the initiative. Whenever we work with Cristal, she is easy to work with and displays the utmost professionalism throughout the process. She completed the videos in such a timely manner, and they were extremely well done! Cristal is someone we know we can rely on for future projects. She demonstrates her knowledge in such a relatable and genuine way that you cannot help but listen attentively and be inspired when she speaks. It is always an absolute pleasure working with Cristal, and we appreciate the time she takes to partner with us! If anyone is considering partnering with Cristal, this is your sign to do it; you surely won't be disappointed!

Cristal is a superb communicator with a unique ability to generate reflection and dialogue around complex subjects such as equity and oppression. Our staff really enjoyed the session she facilitated, and I have no doubt that we will point to those discussions as we look to improve on our work and workplace culture.

Cristal did a workshop with our organization on June 3rd, 2021 on supporting Black youth and analyzing barriers for Black youth mental health within the education sector, criminal justice system, and employment sector. I honestly have to say it was one of the best and most well-put-together workshops that I have attended since being with this organization. Cristal has a comprehensive knowledge of holistic practices to support Black youth and the history of anti-Black racism and systemic oppression in Canada. Her engagement with our audience was phenomenal and her spoken word was absolutely incredible. I would definitely welcome Cristal back to facilitate workshops on supporting Black youth and their families in the future, and I would recommend her to anyone looking for a workshop facilitator on supporting Black youth.

Susanne and Cristal form an incredible and dynamic team, as we can attest to having worked with them on a City-wide community engagement project. This was a very challenging endeavour that had a very tight time frame, broad scope and limited budget while also involving many partners and stakeholders as well as pressures from stakeholders and decision makers. Through their diligence and professionalism in organizing, facilitating and documenting the sessions, not only was the project was completed successfully, on time and with all deliverables achieved, but more importantly, community partners and participants perspectives were engaged meaningfully and their feedback was captured and conveyed genuinely.

OVOV was pleased to have Cristal Hines as a keynote speaker at our PowerUp! Youth Symposium 2025. The PowerUp! Youth Symposium is a groundbreaking Canadian event designed to foster community, celebrate culture, and empower Black children and youth involved in Ontario's child welfare system.

Cristal's keynote session, "Activate Your Power: From Pain to Purpose", invited participants into a space of shared experience, cultural affirmation, and purposeful reflection. Cristal brought a bright, grounding energy into the space, ensuring participants felt engaged, heard, and uplifted.

We were happy to have Cristal join us for PowerUp! and look forward to future opportunities to collaborate.

The energy and dynamism with which Cristal Hines leads our youth toward a bright future is critical, impactful and unparalleled. Her teachings about Black history and futures support even our youngest learners along their paths to better understanding themselves, and their navigation of our society. Cristal shines light on the legacy of Black leadership, the impacts of advocacy and the importance of developing a strong sense of self and self-awareness. She connects with students and reminds them the value in knowing their worth and honing their potential. Cristal instills hope, pride and passion in each of our hearts, and empowers us to have the confidence to stand tall. - Dalana Parris

Cristal presented a powerful time management workshop to students at Ryerson University for Ryerson Women in Leadership's Be Your Own CEO Conference. As students, we were riveted, reflective and inspired to become better at managing our time & taking action. Cristal presented a variety of ideas such as being "booked not busy" and setting 3 priorities for the week to set yourself up for success. We are so lucky to have had Cristal lead a workshop for us & hope to work with her again in the near future!

Amara Community Youth Association (ACYA) is a black-led youth-focused Not for Profit Organization that provides skills gap training and mentorship to marginalized youths. The organization was still in its traction stage with not enough supportive board members and no volunteer support. As an ED, I was really lost and trying to navigate the different aspects of business operations. I enjoyed my session with Cristal very much. She was very knowledgeable about the right operational strategy to get things moving in the right direction. I enjoyed her presentation style, materials, and the common-sense nature of what she talked about. I look forward to working with her again.

Cristal presented a powerful time management workshop to students at Ryerson University for Ryerson Women in Leadership's Be Your Own CEO Conference. As students, we were riveted, reflective and inspired to become better at managing our time & taking action. Cristal presented a variety of ideas such as being "booked not busy" and setting 3 priorities for the week to set yourself up for success. We are so lucky have had Cristal lead a workshop for us & hope to work with her again in the near future!