2023-2024 Year in Review: Outreach and knowledge mobilization
Sharing knowledge and research outcomes is key to ensuring it has an impact.
Here are some examples of how FIFSW faculty have reached out to broader audiences and engaged communities in the important issues they study.
Conference supports age-friendly development in Ontario
Professor Amanda Grenier opened the Ontario Age-Friendly Communities Outreach Program 2024 Conference “Building Healthy Communities: Uniting Experience, Research, and Practice for Ontario’s Age-Friendly Future” with a keynote presentation on aging and inequality. The event aimed to integrate lived experience, research, and practice-based evidence to support age-friendly development in Ontario.
Select the “Session 1: Keynote” tab to watch a recording of Grenier’s keynote
Invisible Wounds screening showcases the power of community-engaged research
The impact of The Centre for Research & Innovation for Black Survivors of Homicide Victims (The CRIB) was in focus during an event marking Black History Month and attended by researchers, students, and Michael Tibollo, Ontario’s Associate Minister of Mental Health and Addictions. The SSHRC-funded film “Invisible Wounds: Stories of Survivorship” was screened at the event. The CRIB’s Director, Associate Professor Tanya Sharpe, and filmmakers Jheanelle Anderson, Deshawn Hibbert, Rani Sanderson, Tito-Tae Sharpe, and Alomar Thorpe took to the stage for a panel discussion that showcased the power of community-engaged research.
Read a summary and view photos from the Invisible Wounds screening event
Policy forum brings together legal professionals, community advocates and first-voice experts
On March 5th, 2024, the Bordering Practices Project hosted its second public forum ‘From Precarity to Security: Navigating Pathways to Citizenship for Children & Youth Involved in Child Welfare.’ (FIFSW Professor Ruplaleem Bhuyan and Associate Professor Bryn King are co-principal investigators for the Bordering Practices Project.) The forum was co-hosted by Cheyanne Ratnam, CEO of Ontario Children’s Advancement Coalition. During the forum, legal professionals, community advocates, and first-voice experts shared insights on current advocacy campaigns to provide pathways to permanent residence and citizenship for former children and youth involved in Canada’s child welfare systems.
Read a summary, find resources and watch recordings from the forum here.
Highlighting the connection between climate change and sexual health
On March 20, Professor Carmen Logie delivered the 2024 Innis Alumni Lecture, “More than Clouds and Condoms: Connecting Climate Change and Sexual Health” at Innis Town Hall. During her talk, Logie — who in addition to her role at FIFSW is a Canada Research Chair in Global Health Equity and Social Justice with Marginalized Populations and an Adjunct Professor at the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment & Health — shared insight from her international research that has uncovered strong links between climate change and mental health.
View a video of Logie’s lecture and read a summary of the event
Published in The Conversation: Families that help care for loved ones with mental illness need more support
Professor and Dean Charmaine Williams drew from her research with the Family Caregiving Project for an article she wrote for The Conversation on Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID). “Access to MAID is a small part of a larger conversation we ought to be having about how the health-care system can provide supports and services that empower people with mental health disorders to navigate the long journey of mental illness with dignity and resilience. Extending support to the families that care for them should be considered key.”
Read Williams’ article in The Conversation
Let’s talk about aging parents
Assistant Professor (Status Only) Laura Tambyln Watts’ new book Let’s Talk About Aging Parents draws on her advocacy and research as CEO of CanAge, Canada’s national Seniors’ advocacy organization, to help adult kids and caregivers navigate the challenges that come with caring for aging parents. The book provides “prompts and roadmaps for informed, honest conversations.”
Learn more about the book Let’s Talk About Aging Parents. Follow Tamblyn Watts on X and LinkedIn.
30@8:30: Strange Fruit: Addressing the Violent Erasure of Black Bodies
For over three years, The Centre for Research and Innovation for Black Survivors of Homicide Vicitms (The CRIB) has brought its popular Instagram Live Series, 30@8:30 to over 10,000 people from over a dozen countries around the world. The CRIB’s Founding Director Dr. Tanya L. Sharpe facilitates 30-minute candid conversations with interdisciplinary scholars and community service providers about structural inequities, homicide, trauma, and victimization that disproportionately impact some of our most vulnerable populations. In 2023, Season 5 of 30@8:30 address the violent erasure of Black bodies with discussions on policing, research as activism, transforming research into policy and practice and more.
Learn more about 30@8:30 and view past episodes