CUES 2021-22: UBC partners with 27 organizations to create community-university projects across BC

From wide-roaming carnivores to below-ground fungal networks, ecosystems are deeply connected. This connectivity means that when one element is disturbed or degraded, a cascade of effects can be felt throughout the system. 

To explore the landscape-level impacts of human decision-making, Raincoast Conservation Foundation, the Coexisting with Carnivores Alliance, and University of Victoria’s Applied Conservation Science Lab are partnering with Dr. Cole Burton of the Department of Forest Resources Management at the University of British Columbia to host a publicly accessible educational series.  

Topics will range from connections between carnivore conservation and climate action to impacts of recreational activities on animal behaviour. Leading experts will contribute to this series focusing on the Coastal Douglas-fir (CDF) and Coastal Western Hemlock (CWH) ecosystems characteristic to Vancouver Island and other small pockets of coastal BC.  

Following the weekly lectures, we will host an in-person Solutions Session, inviting policymakers, scientists, and community members to gather for a thinktank session to strategize stronger environmental protection policy within target ecosystems.

This CUES grant will support a partnership to enhance the participatory evaluation of Walls to Bridges (W2B), a prison education program that facilitates for-credit post-secondary courses in prisons, with half of students actively incarcerated and half from the community.

We will collaboratively explore program impacts on incarcerated and non-incarcerated alumni across Canada, with a specific focus on how program participation has influenced social transformation and participation in civil society.  

This grant will support program alumni – including formerly incarcerated people – to take part in the evaluation, including co-designing data collection, analysis, and knowledge sharing processes. The foundational values of equity, fairness and collaboration will be upheld at each stage of our journey, ensuring our evaluation practices, interview questions and analysis are trauma-informed and aligned with student and alumni priorities, needs and strengths.  

This project will help improve W2B, increase benefits for all students and alumni, and increase opportunities for program sustainability and expansion across Canada.

Dunne-za (Beaver people), the ancestors of West Moberly First Nations (WMFN), have successfully navigated climatic and ecosystem changes for the past 15,000 years. Colonial systems have significantly increased the pace and scale of change over the past few hundred years; WMFN is now confronted with rapid, human-driven climate change that may result in further losses to their Indigenous way of life.

‘Dancing with the Land’ is a partnership between the WMFN and Jessica Dempsey at the University of British Columbia. For there to be dance in WMFN culture, the land calls the people together to develop and renew relations and connections. Their dances represent the union of diverse and unique visions, feelings, understandings, and aspirations in a way that is socially meaningful and consequential.  

The purpose of Dancing with the Land is to advance meaningful and consequential relationship-building, knowledge exchange and research planning around climate change impacts and policies.  

Partners will host a 2.5-day workshop and develop a cooperative climate research agenda (CCRA) identifying immediate needs, knowledge gaps, priorities, and funding opportunities for the partners.

Brain injury is the number one cause of death and disability in people under the age of 45 in Canada. In British Columbia alone, approximately 35 individuals sustain a brain injury each day. These people often experience mental health issues and addiction, alongside the impairments related to their brain injury such as poor balance, difficulty communicating, and decreased memory. It is well-known that brain injury is often experienced alongside mental health issues and addiction, leading to poor quality of life, morbidity, mortality, and financial hardship. 

There are two main obstacles in brain injury rehabilitation: much of the research to date has not aligned with the needs expressed by the community, and, equally, many community programs have not yet embedded evidence into the programming that supports this population. 

It is important to create a unified partnership between community and research programs to better address the needs of people living with brain injury in BC. Our group will develop a consensus on the priorities of people with brain injury, mental health issues, and addiction and ensure that researchers and the community work in tandem to meet their needs.

This partnership will be led by clients of the EFS and support peer-led research planning to facilitate empowerment and de-stigmatization through storytelling, community building and food justice program development.  

Partnering with Indigenous and non-Indigenous women who are on parole and clients of the Elizabeth Fry Society of Greater Vancouver (EFS), we will explore how food justice – the analysis of how power influences our food systems – can support empowerment and dignity for women leaving prison in BC.

We will co-develop team roles and decision-making processes, engage in co-learning about the potentials of food justice to support paroled women, and explore potential solutions and actions to redress overlapping health, prison and food inequities through food justice Participatory Action Research planning and development.  

This project is the initial phase of program development, with the ultimate goal of collaboratively developing, piloting, and sustaining a peer-led and women-centered food justice program conducted in partnership with EFS-run halfway houses across BC; future funding will be sought to support this goal.

Women of South Asian (SA) descent are marginalized during the delivery of health care, especially gynecologic care/cancer prevention. This new community/academic partnership between Canada India Network Society and UBC Gynecologic Cancer Initiative is focused on improving care for this population.

Our shared goal is to build projects that will improve cancer prevention, especially hereditary cancer prevention for SA women within the context of culture. By cultivating our relationship and building further partnerships with community groups, this project will increase capacity for culturally-informed interventions and research studies.  

This fledging team has already received funding to conduct public focus groups about hereditary cancer, but we need to further develop our work and relationships more broadly in the SA community at large. We will expand our team’s reach through community group engagement, media presence, translation of gynecologic cancer prevention materials and the organization of a SA women’s health conference.  

We believe that delivery of women’s health care should be equitable and culturally effective. We begin by listening and engaging with the communities we serve. 

In the past year, climate change has complicated the fight for affordable and secure housing in British Columbia. The 2021 heat dome was responsible for the deaths of 595 people making it the deadliest weather event in Canadian history. Almost all of these deaths occurred at home or in a hotel and disproportionately impacted the elderly, disabled, and poor, many of them tenants living without proper ventilation or cooling.

Such inequality is occurring in a province that is already home to the eviction capital of Canada: Metro Vancouver. In the now intersecting housing and climate emergency, marginalized BC tenants exposed to extreme weather face unique vulnerabilities. Current adaptation measures could result in increased rents and “reno-victions.”  

Housing advocates currently lack the data to push for equitable climate-focused changes to tenant protections. UBC’s Centre for Climate Justice (CCJ) and BC’s Tenant Resource & Advisory Centre (TRAC) are partnering to build a relationship and a foundation for the co-creation of research-driven tenant advocacy in BC’s intersecting housing and climate emergencies.

The Union of BC Indian Chiefs (UBCIC) works collectively amongst Indigenous Nations in BC to act as an advocacy body to provide a cohesive voice in the implementation, exercise and recognition of the inherent Title, Rights and Treaty Rights of Indigenous Peoples and to protect Lands and Waters through Indigenous laws and jurisdiction. UBCIC is dedicated to fostering fundamental and necessary research skills of Indigenous Peoples in BC. 

UBCIC and the newly created UBC Centre for Climate Justice will partner to explore a fundamental challenge in climate justice: Indigenous leadership is necessary for a just future, and yet the priorities, processes and timelines for climate justice policy and research often exclude Indigenous voices, intentionally or not.

Indigenous leaders, staff and community members are stretched to address the multitude of crises of colonialism: pandemic, housing insecurity, opioid overdose, criminalization of land defenders, floods and fires. This partnership begins to develop a roadmap for the types of resourcing and process changes that enable Indigenous Peoples to lead in the systemic change needed in every policy arena that touches on climate change.

Indigenous peoples and territories are disproportionately affected by climate change, including catastrophic wildfires that destroy entire communities and large swaths of traditional resource producing areas – areas already degraded by industrial forest management. This significantly restricts Indigenous peoples’ rights and abilities to use and occupy their/our homelands through impacts to living cultural heritage such as fish and wildlife habitat and food and medicine plants.

In the wake of the devastating 2021 wildfires, Skeetchestn Indian Band are seeking to transform approaches to forest management to center sustainable land use and reciprocal relationships with tmicw (the land and all who rely on it). We will co-design and pilot a cultural heritage monitoring program to support long-term ecosystem restoration and promote opportunities for community land use.  

Through engagement with Elders and heritage keepers, a community open house, joint trainings and planning meetings, we will collectively identify opportunities and community priorities for collaborative monitoring, building trust and relationships to share knowledge on ecology, cultural heritage and fire stewardship.

Despite being federally recognized as a First Nation Band in 2019, Binche has governed its keyoh (territories used and managed by specific families) since time immemorial as guided by Dakelh law, culture, and customs. For decades, however, extractive industry–forestry and mining–has benefited from Binche keyoh, leaving intergenerational impacts on community members, more than human kin, lands, water, and air.

The Alhgoh ‘uts’ut’en project will support Binche Keyoh Bu Society uphold their responsibility of ensuring the Nation’s priorities are reflected in decisions made across keyoh. To reflect the Nation’s self-determination and in accordance with Dakelh law, Binche Keyoh Holders, Elders, Knowledge Keepers, and all members of community must be engaged to set priorities. Yet, extractive activities remain with little engagement according to Dakelh law.  

By working together–Alhgoh ‘uts’ut’en–we will bring all members of Binche together to discuss priorities for the keyoh that embolden Binche self-determination for generations to come despite the lasting legacy of extraction.

The goal of this project, Lingít: a love language for community, is to document stories of Tlingit language loss, but also language reclamation, amongst community members of the Taku River Tlingit First Nation, located in northern British Columbia.  

In 2018, the non-profit organization, Children of the Taku Society, began teaching the Lingít language through the innovative use of structured, scaffolded, language curriculum aimed at developing fluent adult speakers of the language. This has led to a historic moment – the creation of a new cohort of Lingít speakers, who are bringing the language back to their home territory.  

Dr. Christine Schreyer, an associate professor of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia and Children of the Taku Society have partnered to document the journey of these cohort members. However, to understand how the Lingít language is moving forward, they also need to document how the language was left behind.  

Therefore, this project will document stories of Lingít language loss, through residential schools and the loss of intergenerational transmission, as well as community members’, particularly Elders, feelings toward the language.

The United Nations’ Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) outlines the rights of children and youth to develop to their greatest potential. This Child and Youth Rights Literacy (CYRL) project builds on previous local and global UNCRC dialogues to empower systemically excluded children and youth.

We will also draw strengths from longstanding partnerships between the RayCam Cooperative Community Centre, Kinsight Community Society, BC Children’s Hospital (BCCH) Youth Advisory Committee (YAC), GlobalChild Program, Korczak Association of Canada, Equitas International, and BCCH RICHER – UBC Social Pediatrics Program, and UBC faculties of Medicine, Nursing, Social Work, and Education. This project will empower systemically excluded children and youth by ensuring everyone within our communities is aware of their rights. 

This project will promote equitable access, treatment, and opportunity so that all children and youth in our communities can express their gifts and talents. We will also create additional spaces for children and youth to explore their rights related to transition to adulthood for those with mental, developmental, and continuing health support needs.

We will study the activity of slhawt’/herring when they return to spawn in the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw’s (Squamish Nation) territory. Our overarching goal is to strengthen the region’s ability to understand our relation to this place and protect ocean health and Sḵwx̱wú7mesh culture.

Our project has two objectives. First, we aim to gather knowledge about the distribution and survival of ch’em’esh (herring spawn) over two spawning seasons, and the socio-cultural importance of slhawt’ and ch’em’esh to the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Stélmexw (Squamish people). Second, we aim to translate this research into place-based educational resources that strengthen awareness and appreciation of these silvery fish and how they are embedded in Sḵwx̱wú7mesh language and culture.  

These objectives have been co-developed by UBC researchers, the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Nation’s Education department and Sea to Sky School District teachers, in partnership with the Átl’ka7tsem/Howe Sound Marine Reference Guide.  

We will share our findings and educational resources with youth, community groups and decision-makers throughout the Nation’s community and territory.

The Fish Tales Project is a collaboration between the Gulf of Georgia Cannery Society and the University of British Columbia’s Initiative for Student Teaching and Research in Chinese Canadian Studies (UBC INSTRCC).  

The goal of this project is to increase community-based storytelling through discussions of fish and seafood, and to add more diverse voices to the stories of West Coast fishing presented at the Gulf of Georgia Cannery National Historic Site.  

Fish Tales seeks to gather stories and encourage story-sharing through discussions surrounding the consumption of seafood. Food plays a large part in the customs and cultural practices of every community, and is an accessible way to introduce people from other backgrounds to your own.

As such, the team aims to collect stories and create a framework under which the Cannery will be able to offer a community-based and community-oriented mode of gathering stories and sharing histories.

The Southern Stl’atl’imx Health Society (SSHS) delivers holistic and culturally-safe health services to the communities of N’Quatqua, Samahquam, Skatin, and Xa’xsta First Nations. Since 1999, the mandate of SSHS has been to make health and wellness services more accessible in these 4 remote and isolated communities.

This project seeks to deepen the relationship between SSHS and the UPROOT team at UBC by collaborating on a community-identified priority to improve medication accessibility for the Southern St̓át̓imc peoples. Current medication access is limited by poor road conditions and a lack of delivery services from the nearest pharmacy.  

The project team will prioritize local expertise, actively engage in deep knowledge exchange, and utilize existing resources to co-develop an SSHS Medication Accessibility Protocol. This protocol will include an operational pathway for the procurement of medications to SSHS, policies and procedures for SSHS nurses to bring the medications into each community, and community-level organization of medication pick-up and re-ordering procedures. This protocol will honour St̓át̓imc self-determination of health.

Social changes brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic and associated public health measures are unprecedented. These changes have impacted the education system and reshaped the experiences of students with disabilities and complex learning needs over the past two years. Many students struggled with the abrupt shift to online learning in March 2020 and the ongoing changes to the classroom and school experience.

BCEdAccess is a grassroots, volunteer-led non-profit organization that was founded in 2014 and is the provincial leader in advocating on behalf of students with disabilities and complex learning needs. The organization’s membership has grown to over 4000 and during the pandemic, BCEdAccess has been the voice for students and families on various roundtables and committees.  

Since 2018, BCEdAccess has supported the research of the SPICE Lab, which uses population-level data to better understand the educational journeys of students with disabilities and complex learning needs in British Columbia. Building on our ongoing research partnership, this project will focus on knowledge mobilization aimed at systems-level advocacy.

The New Leaf project is the world’s first program evaluating the impact of unconditional direct cash transfers in supporting individuals experiencing homelessness to move back into stable housing, regain food and financial security, and improve their physical and psychological well-being.

Originally piloted in 2018 with a sample size of 50 cash recipients, the New Leaf project provided scientific evidence that unconditional cash transfers can be an effective solution to preventing chronic homelessness for those without severe addictions or mental health issues, while also reducing pressure on the shelter system and freeing up resources that can be redirected to those requiring more extensive and complex support.  

In collaboration between UBC professors, Dr. Jiaying Zhao and Dr. Anita Palepu, and Vancouver-based charity Foundations for Social Change, the Vancouver New Leaf Expansion Project will support 400 individuals experiencing homelessness across Metro Vancouver with non-cash supports (such as a free cell phone, data plan, bank account, ID replacement, money management training, and peer support groups), screening for severe mental health symptoms, addiction, and gambling behaviour. Half of these participants will receive a cash transfer, quadrupling the pilot’s impact. 

In addition to the data being collected by UBC researchers over the course of a year, the project appreciates different ways of knowing and will gather personal stories and narratives. The Storytelling, Experience Building, Narrative Inquiry (SEN) takes an innovative approach to storytelling collection, with a focus on collaboration where participants are invited to do their own sensemaking and retain ownership of their narratives. The initiative is an emergent process, where deliverables, findings and insights will be informed by participants, connector and partners.

Our CUES partnership develops digital language resources to support teachers and learners of two Interior Salish languages, Nsyilxcn (Okanagan) and Nɬeʔkepmxcín (Thompson), each of whom have established and/or upcoming Fluency Degree programs at UBCO (BNLF and BNLEK programs).

The digital resources are constructed from heritage, archived, and/or otherwise inaccessible analog language materials and recordings from fluent elders which are prioritized by our Syilx partners at OIERS (En’owkin Centre) and the Upper Nicola Indian Band, and by our Nɬeʔképmx partners at NVIT and Snk’y’pepɬxʷ.  

Projects are co-managed by community-identified language learners and knowledge-keepers, and UBCO faculty, and provide learning and research opportunities to BNLF/BNLEK students seeking research internships and capstone projects, as well as community-based non-UBC affiliated language learners. 

 We develop information-sharing and archiving frameworks through the guidance of our partner communities to maximize resource accessibility for all learners and teachers using the materials we develop.

EndoAct Canada is a community-led partnership that spearheads research and advocacy on endometriosis. Endometriosis is an incurable disease that affects 10% of assigned-female at birth individuals, causes chronic pain and infertility, negatively affects mental health, and requires lifelong surgical, medical, and lifestyle interventions. Despite the individual burden and societal cost of endometriosis, people in BC wait 5-11 years for diagnosis and 2 or more years for specialized care.  

The EndoAct partnership was initiated in 2019 by The Endometriosis Network Canada, which is the only registered Canadian charity advocating for people with endometriosis, with early engagement from the Canadian Society for the Advancement of Gynecologic Excellence, and the UBC Endometriosis and Pelvic Pain Laboratory.  

Now that EndoAct is established, our goals are to 1) strengthen relationships with the endometriosis community, 2) deepen our commitment to equity, diversity, and inclusion, and 3) build capacity for successful research and advocacy. These goals are tangible steps toward ensuring that people with endometriosis get the right care, in the right place, at the right time.” 

We are completing an e-dictionary for ʔayʔaǰuθəm, the shared language of four sister nations: Tla’amin,Klahoose, Homalco, and K’ómoks.

While there are fewer than 47 first language speakers of ʔayʔaǰuθəmremaining (FPCC 2018), all over 60, all four nations are active revitalizing the language. The nations have identified an e-dictionary, with sound files to aid pronunciation, as an important resource for these efforts. The four nations began collaborating on an e-dictionary six years ago through a SSHRC Insight grant awarded to Dr. Henry Davis from UBC Linguistics, which ended in 2020.

We have recorded and organized an extensive database of materials during this time and are moving into the second stage of our project, reviewing and approving the materials as a four nation team in order to upload them to a shared webpage hosted on FirstVoices.

Fear and uncertainty surrounding the effects of COVID-19 for young families in Canada have been challenging. Limited data on COVID-19 vaccine efficacy, acceptance, and uptake during pregnancy, breastfeeding, and for young children may contribute to vaccine hesitancy in these groups.

It is important to address vaccine confidence and to develop context-specific interventions that are tailored to group and individual needs. This project aims to build on and sustain our existing collaborative research project exploring COVID-19 vaccine perceptions among pregnant and breastfeeding people and families with young children in British Columbia.  

Using a community-based approach, the goal of this project is to create a COVID-19 vaccine resource toolkit tailored to these target groups in Interior BC. A knowledge mobilization plan will be developed to refine, implement, and evaluate this toolkit within family programming at The Bridge Youth & Family Services (The Bridge).  

This collaborative initiative will improve vaccine awareness, education, and confidence to support families in making informed decisions about COVID-19 vaccinations at The Bridge and beyond.

Pony Cabaret & the Living Positive Resource Centre (LPRC) co-present an evening of queer art performance at the Black Box Theatre. This cultural event gathers community members and the public to participate in queer cultural programming off-campus, to improve the social determinants of health for people living with HIV or with increased risk factors.

The goal of Pony is robust but simple:

• to share LPRC resources and spread news of their good work within a community that can often be hard to reach in a small-city setting,
• to help LPRC find new members, volunteers, and donors,
• to demonstrate that (often maligned) HIV and LGBTQ2S+ education can include good, light-hearted sex-positive holistic fun,
• to create a welcoming space for queer art/performance and those who value it,
• to put a caring human face to the experiences of those who are queer and/or living with HIV in the Okanagan, which helps to reduce the stigmatization of these experiences.

The LPRC and Pony are helping write a new queer-inclusive story for the Okanagan, to value queer health in an area with limited resources and a less than stellar track record with the communities mentioned.

The record-breaking 2017, 2018 and 2021 wildfire seasons burned 3.4 million hectares throughout BC, disproportionately affecting Indigenous communities and territories through large-scale evacuations, impacts to fish and wildlife habitats, and subsequent flooding. However, Indigenous communities continue to face significant barriers to engaging in wildfire management and in having their expertise and rights upheld.

This project builds on a partnership between UBC and the Secwepemcúl’ecw Restoration and Stewardship Society, founded by 8 Secwépemc communities impacted by the 2017 fires. Drawing on our recent major report that documents Secwépemc and provincial agency experiences of the 2017 wildfires and identifies challenges and lessons learned from the precedent-setting joint recovery process, the SRSS and UBC will work together with BC Wildfire Service and the provincial government to implement key findings and recommendations.  

Through planning sessions, community workshops, policy proposals and report dissemination and outreach our project supports the Secwépemc and other Nations in advancing Indigenous leadership in wildfire management and wildfire resilience across BC.

AIDS Vancouver and UBC researchers are harnessing our collective experiences in supporting women living with HIV to host four women-centered knowledge translation events.

AIDS Vancouver has supported the HIV community since 1983, with services including peer-to-peer programming, case management, and grocery support. Researchers at UBC are investigating healthy aging in women living with HIV, from cell-to-society, in the community-based British Columbia CARMA-CHIWOS Collaboration (BCC3) study.  

We aim to host a series of knowledge translation events where women living with HIV and researchers will share a meal, discuss research findings through interactive games, and create art based on themes such as “what makes me strong.” These art pieces will be amalgamated into a mural to be displayed at HIV organizations.  

Knowledge exchange topics will focus on women’s sexual and reproductive health as they age, with specific topics chosen in consultation with women living with HIV.  

Participants will leave each event with a gift card, lay-language summary of the information shared, and individualized appreciation bags of health-promoting items (i.e., underwear, tampons, socks, reading glasses).

The Integrated Data and Evaluative Analytics (IDEAs) Cohort is a dynamic cohort including all people in BC who were tested for hepatitis C or HIV, or diagnosed with hepatitis B, hepatitis C, HIV or active tuberculosis since 1990.

Testing and case data are linked with all medical visits, hospitalizations, cancers, prescription drugs, and death records, and is used for public health surveillance and research on related health outcomes. The IDEAs Cohort team has partnered with the Pacific AIDS Network and BC Hepatitis Network for many years to determine the surveillance and research priorities of people affected by viral hepatitis and HIV in BC, so that these can be prioritized in work with these data.  

This project aims to sustain those partnerships, so we can create a formal framework for engagement of patients, people with lived and living experiences and community in surveillance and research conducted with the IDEAs Cohort. This will allow us to create a renewed set of patient and community-oriented hepatitis C and HIV research and surveillance priorities to take forward.

Children with developmental disabilities have traditionally been segregated from their peers in community-based programs, despite evidence of health benefits of inclusive education to all. Realizing the lack of emphasis of integration and inclusion in community aquatic programs, Aquafit for All (AFA), a local nonprofit organization, sought to explore barriers and facilitators to inclusive aquatics programming for children with developmental challenges.

Along with parents of children with developmental disabilities, AFA collaborated with Dr. Tal Jarus from UBC to reconceptualize inclusive community programs using a Participatory Action Research (PAR) framework.  

We published the results, and our partnerships are ongoing as parents from the study are eager to implement findings of the PAR project to begin a new program. We are proposing to continue our partnership by implementing and evaluating “Aquatic Literacy,” an innovative aquatics program developed using results from our PAR project, where the child who is neurodiverse will spend at least a portion of the time (as a goal set with parents at the beginning of the program) with the group and receive one-on-one time when necessary. 

Perspectives in Biodiversity – Sturgeon Harpoon Knowledge Web is a collaboration between the Musqueam First Nation and Beaty Biodiversity Museum. Our thoughtful and authentic partnership explores biodiversity as an interconnected web of knowledge, language, and sharing from Musqueam Knowledge Keepers.

Our online immersive exhibition is an existing award-winning project that has been developed between our communities, and one that we hope to enrich and deepen through this project. This exhibition evolved naturally through years of discussions and connections between our communities, and has grown into a living resource and repository of knowledge for transfer to future generations.  

This project will add further digital layers from Musqueam Knowledge Keepers to the existing framework, and develop physical explorations and digital immersive environments in both the Musqueam Community and the Museum, extending this web and deepening its impact.  

Our evolving relationship is at the heart of this project, ensuring an authentic understanding of these perspectives and ways of knowing, and placing them steadfastly in the future.