Recent Projects
Circumpolar Resilience, Engagement, and Action through Story (Project Creates)
Project CREATeS is a research collaboration with the Sustainable Development Working Group (SDWG) of the Arctic Council. The SDWG co-leads on this project included the Inuit Circumpolar Council, Canada, Finland, Kingdom of Denmark, and Sweden. Project CREATeS engaged youth in a dialogue about suicide prevention through the telling of their own stories. Youth were invited to take part in digital storytelling workshops where they were supported to share their stories in story circles, and write, audio record, photograph, film, and edit their own stories into digital stories. Each workshop ended with an opportunity for youth to screen their stories to the group, and to participate in a closing sharing group to discuss the messages of their stories, and their ideas and hopes for wellness and suicide prevention.
Aging Out Without a Safety Net (Aging Out)
Aging Out is a three-year project (2018-2021) in collaboration with the Child and Youth Permanency Council of Canada (formerly the Adoption Council of Canada), which explores the connection between transitioning without permanence or “aging out” of care, and economic insecurity. A central aim of this initiative is to systematically identify the barriers and facilitators to economic security experienced by young women who have aged out, and to develop evidence-informed recommendations that build on current supports and address identified barriers.
Aging Out is structured as a series of one-day workshops with youth and young adults across Canada. Workshops have been conducted in 5 cities, with 8-12 participants in each session. Study participants complete questionnaires, join small group discussions, engage in a guided journey mapping activity, and take part in a focus group discussion centered on lived experiences, navigating the child welfare system, and recommendations for change.
Reports by the ACC/CYPCC
Qualitative Report created in partnership by ACC/CYPCC & CAMH
Funding provided by Women and Gender Equality Canada
Youth Speak Out Storytellers (YSOS)
YSOS was a three-year program (2017-2020) conducted in collaboration with the Child and Youth Permanency Council of Canada (formerly the Adoption Council of Canada). YSOS explores the stories, perspectives, and experiences of youth in and from the child welfare system through digital storytelling. This pan-Canadian initiative invited youth with child welfare experiences to take part in digital storytelling (DST) workshops hosted in their city. During each 3-day long workshop session, participants were guided through the DST process to create short, first person narrative films. DST workshops included digital story creation, a group screening, and culminated in a focus group discussion. A total of 25 YSOS digital storytelling workshops have been conducted in cities across Canada, with over 200 participant-storytellers. Qualitative analysis of the digital stories and focus group data is now underway.
From Developmental Trauma to Developing Resilience (Developing Resilience)
Developmental trauma (DT), caused by adverse childhood experiences, is widespread and takes a costly toll on the physical and psychological health and well-being of individuals across social strata. The impacts of DT vary, but are often lifelong, creating a need for research with a lifespan approach.
The Developing Resilience study, launching fall 2020, focuses on journeys after developmental trauma. During a series of online workshops, arts-based methods will be used to explore participants’ understandings of DT and resilience, including the perceived impacts of adverse childhood events throughout their lives. Journey mapping activities will be used to explore how people with lived experience of DT navigate healthcare and other systems (e.g. educational, child welfare), as well as points of contact and meaningful moments along the way. This study supports participants to describe and depict (verbally and visually) the current state, desired state, and opportunities for enhanced support and change.
This project is funded by a grant from the University of Toronto Foundation, through a donation by the Purpleville Foundation.
Reaching Out With Heart –understanding needs and experiences of learners in Psychiatric Outreach
The Ontario Psychiatric Outreach Program is a consortium of three academic centers - the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH, Toronto); Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry (London); and Ottawa University – who provide psychiatry services to underserved rural and remote communities in Ontario. CAMH also provides outreach services to Nunavut.
The Reaching Out project was an opportunity to bring students, faculty, and community stakeholders together to share stories related to outreach, and to make these into digital stories. These were followed by in-depth qualitative interviews. The goal was to use this exploration of experiences to understand the needs of learners and providers of outreach psychiatry. The stories helped to develop a competency framework for outreach. Stories will also be used to educate learners about outreach.
The Good Medicine Project
Co-led with Dr. Lisa Richardson, Office of Indigenous Medical Education, University of Toronto. We gathered with a group of First Nations and Métis health providers and Elders to share stories of health care and healing, and to create digital stories based upon these experiences. Sharing circles helped us to collectively make meaning from these stories. The goal was to critically engage the ideas of health and healing and to look at ways of bringing Indigenous knowledges, science and medicine into healthcare. This phase of the project was funded by a grant from the Medical Psychiatry Alliance, University of Toronto.
A second and ongoing phase of this project is to publish an anthology of stories and art by Indigenous writers and artists related to their experiences in healthcare.
This is funded by the Ontario Arts Council.
Digital Compassion Project
With Drs. Gillian Strudwick and David Wiljer, this project uses storytelling to understand people’s experiences of compassion as both providers and recipients of healthcare in digital environments. We know that compassion is important to both patient experiences and outcomes, and to health provider satisfaction and wellbeing. While we know that patients general express satisfaction with digital healthcare, and can form good therapeutic alliances with health providers, less in known about digital compassion. Recent research also suggests that technology can be associated with burnout and fatigue among providers, which may in turn lead to compassion fatigue in patient care.
Arts-based research methods will allow exploration in this research area which needs development. Often these approaches can help participants draw forth new conceptual ideas from experience.
See our forthcoming chapter on digital compassion: Wiljer, D, Strudwick, G, Crawford, A. Caring in a Digital Age: Exploring the Interface of Humans and Machines in the Provision of Compassionate Healthcare. In Without Compassion There is No Healthcare, Eds. B. Hodges, J. Bennet, G. Paeche. McGill University Press (forthcoming).