In early 2021, the Community-University Engagement Support (CUES) fund awarded a total of $500,000 to 21 community organizations working with faculty, staff, and students in UBCO and UBCV.
See below for the full list of projects.
Quick Links:
Projects Funded by the CUES Explore Stream
The Explore stream is designed to help establish new partnerships by ensuring partners have the necessary time and resources to build trust, define shared interests, identify knowledge gaps and shared goals and to design collaborative research, teaching or learning projects. The recipients of Explore Funding are:
Advancing new partnerships in gender-based violence across the lifespan
- Community Partner: Pauline Kelly-Brandes, Central Okanagan Elizabeth Fry Society
- UBC Partner: Victoria Bungay, Applied Science/School of Nursing
- Website: https://empowerific.com
This project aims to better understand the current context of violence prevention and recovery services for women in the Central Okanagan Regional District, advance community engagement in research addressing gender-based violence, and create a plan to enhance community capacity to co-lead research for improved service delivery. Gender-based violence (GBV), including domestic violence and sexual assault are pressing concerns for women in this region, a situation worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic. Reports indicate a 20-30% increase in GBV and as high as 400% increases in sexual assault and crisis intervention services. The long-term impacts of violence for women are devastating and there is an urgent need for evidence informed understandings to shape the future of service provision in this region. The Central Okanagan Elizabeth Fry Society (COEFS) has been a leading, front-line service organization specializing in violence prevention and recovery with women for over 45 years. They also act as a central referral agency supporting access to essential health and social services. The Capacity Research Unit will work together with the COEFS to determine effective strategies for undertaking community-based research aimed at improving the lives of women affected by violence. They will develop partnerships with other service agencies to understand current service delivery models and the potential gaps for women who are often disconnected from supports and services.
Needs Assessment of Digital Archaeological Information Governance Tools at Westbank First Nation Archaeology Office
- Community Partner: Nancy Bonneau, Westbank First Nation
- UBC Partner: Neha Gupta, Arts and Social Science, CCGS (Anthropology)
The team will assess needs toward development of a Web-based interactive map that integrates cultural protocol for archaeological information, expands upon Indigenous data governance and supports Westbank First Nation in building capacity in digital methods in archaeology and heritage. These efforts, in turn, can support provincial and federal Canadian commitments to the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (2007) and future transitions within First Nations towards self-governance.
Pathways to preeclampsia: A partnered approach to educational materials and knowledge translation
- Community Partner: Violet Mateljan, Preeclampsia Foundation Canada
- UBC Partner: Marianne Vidler, Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Faculty of Medicine
- Website: https://preeclampsiacanada.ca/
Preeclampsia is a complication of pregnancy characterized by high blood pressure. If left untreated, it can cause serious, life-threatening pregnancy complications, for both parent and baby. Unfortunately, while rates of preeclampsia are increasing in Canada, many of its risk factors are difficult to communicate to a public audience (and to pregnant women and their families).In partnership between the Preeclampsia Foundation Canada (Community project partner) and UBC PRE-EMPT (PREgnancy Evidence, Monitoring, Partnerships and Treatment [University project partner]), we will work with patient partners to develop the ‘Pathways to Preeclampsia’ risk communication tool. Our patient partners are individuals who are former patients, survivors, and experts around the condition of preeclampsia. They provide invaluable input by guiding and informing research activities through their lived experience, and ensuring the research activities are relevant, representative, and meaningful to patient and public audiences. Our ‘Pathways to Preeclampsia’ project will aim to consolidate and disseminate research findings through development of a visually engaging and interactive tool. This tool aims to communicate individual risk factors for preeclampsia to pregnant populations in Canada. Our hope is that by having a better understanding of their risk factors, pregnant populations will be better equipped to seek care early in pregnancy.
Building a Value Chain Partnership (farm to institution) Through Piloting Local Food Procurement
- Community Partner: Liz Blakeway, North Okanagan Land to Table Network
- UBC Partner: Dr. Jon Corbett, Institute for Community Engaged Research (ICER)
- Website: https://landtotablenetwork.com/
While the Okanagan Valley is known for its rich and diverse agricultural landscape, the reality is that many of its farmers face economic crisis. Increasing market access for small and medium farmers is critical to growing the local food economy, attracting new farmers to the region and building re-localized value chains that are resilient in the face of global pandemic and climate crises. Land to Table (L2T) is a regional network of community partners working to create a prosperous, sustainable and accessible food system. Its members have been calling for an institutional champion such as UBCO to work with the coordination capacities of L2T to build relationships along the food value chain, from farmers to processors, distributors, food services, and consumers, that may enable these partners to overcome challenges to local food procurement. Discussions began in August 2020 with an initial $1500 UBC Partnership Grant to identify opportunities for enabling local procurement from farmers to UBCO Food Services. This project identified barriers to scaling up and sustaining local food procurement, but it also revealed a keen interest on all sides to engage in further dialogue and build relationships through a pilot project to procure a limited set of food items.
Uncovering Brilliance, Transforming Racism: a mindfulness group for QTIBIPOC young folks
- Community Partner: Lydia Luk, PeerNet Association of British Columbia
- UBC Partner: Anna White, Faculty of Education – Dean’s Office
- Website: http://peernetbc.com/
Uncovering Brilliance, Transforming Racism (UBTR) is a mindfulness program for Queer Trans Black, Indigenous, multi-ancestral, People of Colour communities (QTBIPOC) to be developed by peer professional, Lu Lam, Mindfulness Counsellor and Consultant. PeerNetBC is a non-profit charitable organization dedicated to capacity building for Peer-led initiatives across BC. UBC CampOUT! is a leadership and learning summer camp for LGBTQ2S+ youth and young adults. Connected by our shared commitment to, anti-racism, mental health, disability justice and decolonizing work, we’re excited to collaborate on peer-led learning with an intersectional anti-oppressive lens by offering UBTR as an 8-week program for youth! CampOUT and PeerNetBC will bring our expertise working with and for youth to explore partnering to offer UTBR as a land-based mindfulness program for QTIBIPOC youth.Through UBTR, Black, Indigenous, and racialized LGBTQ2S+ youth and young adults will develop skills to care and grow resilience to the mental health impacts of racism, transphobia, and homophobia through evidence-based mindfulness practices in a group setting. A decolonial land-based healing and trauma informed approach within the ecology of Pacific Spirit Park will be integrated in relationship with Elders for land-based teachings.
p̓ʔax̌ kl tmixʷ Collective wisdom for a sustaining future here (tmixw science)
- Community Partner: Tracey Kim Bonneau, En’owkin Centre (Okanagan Indian Educational Resources Society)
- UBC Partner: Billy Cohen, Okanagan School of Education
p̓ʔax̌ kl tmixʷ Collective wisdom for a sustaining future here. Our partnership is designed to bring Indigenous and Settler institutions together to re-imagine an ecosystems-based curriculum to better engage Indigenous youth, and to prepare those youth for educational pathways in the Sciences (western ecosystems sciences and Syilx Traditional Ecological Knowledge). This is a complex conversation involving transformations in teaching in secondary and tertiary settler institutions, with Indigenous knowledge-holders and their institutions. This requires active engagement by all stakeholders, for foundational, broad-based multicultural commitment, and critical for this era of fires, floods, pandemics, and threatened bio-diversity. Tmixʷ science project looks to engage Syilx and Indigenous youth in a land-based Syilx TEK and Ecosystems Science informed program by connecting to, working with, and learning about Indigenous water, earth, plant and animal appreciation and uses with Syilx TEK specialists and SD Science teachers and UBC scientists and educators.
Navigating Sexual and Reproductive Health in BC : Perspectives of Im/migrant Youth
- Community Partner: Michelle Fortin, Options for Sexual Health
- UBC Partner: Sarah Munro, Faculty of Medicine, Contraception & Abortion Research Team (CART-GARC)
- Website: https://www.optionsforsexualhealth.org/
Im/migrant populations, particularly youth, experience higher rates of unmet sexual and reproductive health(SRH) needs in Canada. In the absence of culturally appropriate and accessible SRH care, they face an increasedrisk of harm when engaging in normal, healthy sexual behaviors for their age. Through the partnership with Optionsfor Sexual Health, our team plans to engage youth and service providers in a participatory action research project,to co-develop study design and materials, and collect and analyze qualitative interview data. Our aim is todescribe the individual, sociocultural, economic and immigration specific factors that influence access to SRH careamong im/migrant youth in BC to inform patient-centred program and policy change. This project is embedded ina larger program of research that aims to understand the barriers and facilitators to SRH access among youth inCanada. We are seeking funding to support relationship and trust-building activities between UBC and Options forSexual Health, and other organizations providing SRH care and advocacy for im/migrant youth in BC. Thisconsultation period is a critical first step in our equity- oriented, collaborative research methodology.
We are each other’s medicine: Preserving and Revitalizing Traditional Nuxalk Medicines Knowledge
- Community Partner: Kirsten Milton, Nuxalk Nation Health and Wellness
- UBC Partner: Larry Leung, Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences
- Website: https://nuxalknation.ca
“We are each other’s medicine” is a Nuxalk saying that represents the importance of family, community, and traditional medicines in health and healing through the passing of stories, or Smayustas, from generation-to-generation. The Nuxalk Nation, located in and around what is now known as Bella Coola, has a proud and rich history of traditional medicines knowledge and it has become increasingly more important to both preserve and revitalize this knowledge for a new generation of Nuxalk peoples and families. The proposed project seeks to explore a new relationship between the Nuxalk Nation Health and Wellness and Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences in order to provide reciprocal benefit to both the community and the university. The overall goal is to increase engagement, build mutual trust, and define shared interests with Nuxalk Elders and Knowledge Keepers to better learn how this knowledge can be preserved for future generations and integrated into existing health services. It is vital that we take time to build rapport and trust between the University and Nuxalk Nation Health and Wellness, especially given that traditional medicines knowledge is considered privileged and sacred.
Projects Funded by the CUES Sustain Funding Stream
The Sustain stream is designed to help help to fill resource gaps experienced by partners who have already been working collaboratively with UBC and want to do more. The recipients of Sustain Funding are:
Peer Advocacy Navigator Expansion Project
- Community Partner: Laura Shaver, BC Association of People on Opioid Maintenance (BCAPOM) and Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users (VANDU)
- UBC Partner: Cheyenne Johnson, BC Centre on Substance Use (research center affiliated with UBC Faculty of Medicine) and UBC School of Nursing
- Website: https://bcapom.wordpress.com/
- Website: https://www.vandu.org/
BC saw the highest number of fatal overdoses through 2020 as a result of the compounding effects of COVID-19 and the ongoing overdose crisis. We continue to witness significant health and social consequences that result from inequitable and discriminatory treatment in the health care system. Access to provincial supports that help people navigate challenges in our system is key to reducing preventable deaths in BC. People with lived and living experience have the ability to connect and empathize with people in their addiction and can provide non-judgemental and meaningful guidance. Currently, hired peers help navigate the addiction treatment system for those with opioid use disorder. In its current state, there are opportunities to bolster the sustainability and accessibility of this important support. The partnership between the BCCSU/BCAPOM/VANDU aims to strengthen and expand these supports and improve communication between organizations, ensuring that opportunities for change are heard jointly between community and provincial partners. Increased peer capacity can help improve access to treatment options, promote fair and equitable care, and improve health and recovery outcomes.
Implementing Tsilhqot’in Laws and Jurisdiction in Times of Crisis
- Community Partner: Jody Nishima, Tsilhqot’in National Government
- UBC Partner: Jocelyn Stacey, Law
This project builds on an existing partnership between the Tsilhqot’in National Government, Dr. Jocelyn Stacey (Law, UBC), and Emma Feltes (Anthropology, UBC) that documents the implementation of Tsilhqot’in laws and jurisdiction and the gaps and barriers that the Tsilhqot’in encountered when engaging with the Canadian state in two recent emergencies: the 2017 wildfires and the COVID-19 pandemic. Drawing on their findings and reports from that partnership, in this project, the Nation and UBC researchers work together to implement the recommendations of these reports. This will include a number of planning sessions, development of new policies and a community toolkit to make the findings of these reports accessible to all Tsilhqot’in citizens. This project also includes a post-pandemic community gathering and report launch to deliver the most recent report to the Tsilhqot’in people, which will acknowledge and celebrate the hard work of the Nation throughout the pandemic as reflected in the report. This project supports the Tsilhqot’in National Government in its ongoing work of Nation building and strengthening its leading role in Indigenous emergency management.
Imagining a Haida Gwaii Knowledge Integration Centre
- Community Partner: Judson Brown, Council of the Haida Nation
- UBC Partner: Carlos Ormond, Dean’s Office, Faculty of Forestry
- Website: haidanation.ca
The project “Imagining a Haida Gwaii Knowledge Integration Centre” is a community project between the Council of the Haida Nation, Haida Gwaii Museum, Gwaii Haaanas Archipelago Management Board, BC Ministry FLNORD, Haida Gwaii Institute and the larger Haida Gwaii community aimed to set the foundation for a centre to support and manage research, or better put a knowledge integration centre (KIC), on Haida Gwaii. The expected outcomes from this project are: 1) a collaboratively created guide to conducting ethical research on Haida Gwaii to be shared to community members and publicly; 2) A document that communicates the research needs of Haida Gwaii over the next five years; 3) A “Welcome to Haida Gwaii for Visiting Researchers” guide and online session that shares important historical context, governance structures, relationships, and cultural considerations; 4) An organized strategy to manage applications to do research on Haida Gwaii; 5) offer an online course for locals on conducting oral history interviews; 6) create mentorship opportunities; 7) A five year business plan/strategic plan for the KIC on Haida Gwaii; and 8) community support and excitement for a KIC on Haida Gwaii
Social inclusion and safety for Indigenous Peoples leaving prison during COVID-19: A community partnership
- Community Partner: Louise Sallai, Fraser Region Aboriginal Friendship Center Association
- UBC Partner: Kelsey Timler, Interdisciplinary Studies
- Website: https://frafca.org/
COVID-19 has created immense barriers to health and wellbeing for Indigenous Peoples leaving prison into the Fraser Region. This ongoing partnership will continue to support social inclusion.
The Urban Farm
- Community Partner: Rory Sutherland, Downtown Eastside Neighbourhood House
- UBC Partner: Thomas Kemple, Faculty of Arts, Department of Sociology
- Website: https://www.dtesnhouse.ca/urban-farm
The Urban Farm occupies an acre at the corner of Hawks and Hastings next to the Astoria Hotel SRO in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. It is a joint project of the nearby Downtown Eastside Neighbourhood House (DTES-NH) and UBC’s Urban Ethnographic Field School (UEFS), a summer program run by UBC’s Departments of Anthropology and Sociology since 2010, established in May 2020 as a response to the acute food security crisis in the neighbourhood resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic. This past summer it employed over 100 UBC and community volunteers who worked over 2600 hours constructing plots and planting a variety of vegetables and herbs, including an Indigenous medicine garden. Weekly events are held for community members from diverse ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds, including plant sales, barbeques, family planting and harvesting, and tours for neighbourhood gardening clubs. We now want to make this project sustainable beyond the pandemic. The primary aims are to enhance provision of food security for marginalized, excluded, and disadvantaged residents; promote education about food sovereignty; and raise awareness about gentrification.
The Better Future Budgets Project: Ensuring governments budget so Canada works for all generations
- Community Partner: Gen Squeeze
- UBC Partner: Paul Kershaw, Faculty of Medicine / School of Population and Public Health
- Website: www.gensqueeze.ca
Young people in their 20s, 30s, 40s, and their children endure a 360-degree squeeze: they study and work more for lower earnings, higher costs and debt, less work-life balance and a deteriorating enviornment. This squeeze is happening partly because research shows that governments do not organize their budgets in line with the best available evidence about what younger Canadians need to ease their squeeze, nor to promote intergenerational fairness. This project’s goal is to engage and mobilize young people to shape future government budgets so they address the significant issues facing younger people, while investing in a Canada that works for all generations. The project will combine academic research (led by the Gen Squeeze Lab at UBC) with participatory budgeting approaches (led by the Gen Squeeze charity) to solicit input from younger Canadians and relevant community organizations about their priorities for how public resources should be spent. The outcome will be an accessible, evidence-driven, public-informed framework for which people can advocate across Canada to monitor, shape and evaluate future government budgets – starting with the federal and BC governments.
Éyxel Together: Healing and Wellness in the time of COVID-19 in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.
- Community Partner: Nicole Bird, Carnegie Community Centre Association
- UBC Partner: Suzie O’Shea, UBC Learning Exchange
- Website: Carnegie Community Centre
Just two city blocks apart, the Indigenous Programs at the Carnegie Community Centre (CCC) and the University of British Columbia’s Learning Exchange (UBC LE) have been working collaboratively, for several years, to deliver and provide Indigenous cultural teaching activities that promote healing and wellness for Elders and community members in the Downtown Eastside (DTES).Since March 2020, both organisations have had to respond to the global pandemic and its local impacts on Elders and participants, many of whom identify as Indigenous, LGBTQ2S+, living with mental health challenges, experiencing homelessness, and/or addictions issues. Access to cultural programming is a necessary means for healing and wellness for many in the DTES, and the current context requires is a (re)visioning of how to deliver this vital programming. As we face a ‘new normal,’ Sustain funding will enhance this existing partnership and allow us to build upon the success of bringing together UBC’s online learning tools and resources with the knowledge and expertise of the Indigenous Programs at the CCC. The funds would provide the opportunity to offer accessible, virtual and in-person cultural activities for Elders, staff training, and programming for hundreds of community members while deepening the capacity of both partners.
Healing with Heritage: Nuxalk Museum and Exhibition Planning through Collaborative Engagement
- Community Partner: Snxakila Clyde Tallio, It7Nuxalkmctmacw Language and Culture Council / Nuxalk Nation Administration
- UBC Partner: Jennifer Kramer, Museum of Anthropology & Department of Anthropology
First Nations cultural workers are experts on the ways that museums impact their ability to flourish as a community and to revitalize and strengthen Indigenous laws and ways of life. Museum professionals who work with First Nations have much to learn about how their work representing Indigenous peoples can benefit community well-being. After collaborating together on numerous museum projects, our project team seeks to align two future museum initiatives around the joint goal of using heritage and cultural knowledge to support the well-being of the Nuxalk First Nation. Together, we will 1) explore Nuxalk perspectives for building future museum in Nuxalk Territory and 2) identify Nuxalk self-representation strategies for a proposed Nuxalk exhibition at MOA.
Community Voices: Development of a Community Research Guidance Circle through a Community-University Partnership
- Community Partner: Kate Hodgson, RayCam Community Association
- UBC Partner: Sara Jassemi, Faculty of Medicine, Department of Pediatrics, Division of Adolescent Health and Medicine
- Website: http://raycam.org/
The dual public health emergencies of the COVID-19 pandemic and Opioid Crisis exist within broader issues of long-standing structural injustices, which have amplified the need for community-based self-determined research centering on Indigenous knowledge. In this historical moment, research needs to be done in a good way, which includes structurally-responsive and trauma-informed policies and practices that recognize community knowledge and expertise.Through a partnership between the RayCam Community Association (RayCam) and the RICHER Social Pediatrics Program at UBC and BC Children’s Hospital, we propose to co-create a community research guidance circle, highlighting the diverse perspectives from the community members who access services at RayCam, including: children, youth, families, elderly, urban Indigenous peoples, and newcomers to Canada.The community research guidance circle is a demonstration of respect to historically disenfranchised study participants, who have often voiced that they have been “researched to death.” Urban Indigenous children and youth and their caregivers’ voices are absent from policies informing culturally safe programs. The circle acknowledges their right to participate, guide, lead, and consent to research that impacts them. In effect, community members can research their communities “back to life.” Ultimately, we aim to create a legacy of new researchers who represent community voices.
A Community-University Partnership to Improve Health Outcomes of Families and Caregivers of Children and Youth Impacted by Self Injurious Behaviours (SIB)
- Community Partner: Angela Clancy, Family Support Institute of British Columbia
- UBC Partner: Anamaria Richardson, UBC Department of Pediatrics
- Website: https://familysupportbc.com/
Self-Injurious Behaviours (SIB) are isolating behaviours that impact many children who have intellectual impairment and neurodiversity, including genetic syndromes and autism. SIB includes behaviours such as punching to face and head, eye gouging, skin scratching, biting, picking and results in significant trauma. The trauma is experienced by the child, and by families who have to watch, restrain, advocate, and endure. Support groups are a means for families to find community and information, however support groups are usually aimed at children who are less severely affected, and families feel like they cannot relate. Families also look for new treatments or therapies that may improve their child’s quality of life. In a new collaboration with the Family Support Institute of BC, a parent-directed peer-to-peer support organization, together with SIB ThinkTank Partners engaged in our Phase 1 CUES Explore Project, we propose creating an on-line curriculum delivered in groups for parents and caregivers of children with severe SIB. The goals are synergistic: 1. Support a SIB Community, acknowledging unique harms to families 2. Education around SIB 3. Advocacy to increase outcomes
Understanding families’ experiences to support community-level decision making
- Community Partner: Tracy Spannier, Revelstoke Child Care Society
- UBC Partner: Martin Guhn, Medicine/School of Population and Public Health/Human Early Learning Partnership
- Website: https://www.revelstokechildcaresociety.com/
Experiences during the early years set the foundation for life-long learning, social relationships, health, and wellbeing. Decision makers in communities benefit from systematic information on the experiences of local families to inform community-level decision making, address needs, and build on existing community resources, however, such data commonly do not exist. In order to address this gap, a research team at the Human Early Learning Partnership has partnered with early years professionals and families in Revelstoke, BC, to collect community-wide data capturing the social contexts and early experiences of children and their families. Having collected responses from over 90% of Revelstoke families with toddlers, the proposed project seeks to engage in knowledge exchange sessions to explore the data, connect it to local knowledge of community experiences and context, and set priorities for future supports. Such supports would specifically be aimed at enhancing resources and access to services, programs, and positive experiences for families with young children. This project will deepen a longstanding community-university collaboration between the HELP and Revelstoke teams.
Formalizing Existing Community-University Research Relationships by Building a Vancouver Chinatown Consortium
- Community Partner: Kevin Huang, hua foundation (as a project under MUSE Society)
- UBC Partner: Henry Yu, St. John’s College; Department of History
- Website: https://huafoundation.org/
The purpose of this partnership is to create an organizing infrastructure, or a “Chinatown Consortium,” to supportmulti-lateral UBC-community partnerships through collaboratively creating and mobilizing knowledge; developinga collaborative business plan for heritage products, tours, and educational programming that funnels back toChinatown organizations and businesses; and facilitating meaningful youth engagement in Chinatown throughstudent research internships with hua foundation and other community partners in Vancouver Chinatown. Inparticular, catalyzed by COVID-19, student interns will support the conversion of programming content, visitorengagement, and merchandising online in virtual formats and engagement spaces.
Pictured at top, left to right: Haida Heritage Centre at Kay Llnagaay, HlG̱aagilda (Skidegate), Haida Gwaii; The Urban Farm in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside; Participants in the Peer Navigator Advocary Project.