Driven by passion and personal experiences, our researchers are addressing issues that affect 2SLGBTQ+ communities.
Assistant Professor Maryam Khan is dedicated to improving access to health social services for sexually and gender-diverse Muslims and helping to repair relationships with their families.
Assistant Professor Cameron McKenzie leads community-based research on health equity and advocates to embed 2SLGBTQ+ issues within social work curricula.
Professor Michael Woodford focuses his research on microaggressions and victimization within 2SLGBTQ+ communities and making university campuses more inclusive.
"I learned a lot about myself. I learned about how important it is to be present. I learned to trust my own voice and that it’s okay to express my voice, I learned about all kinds of assumptions that I carry and how that inevitably will impact how I interact with the world, and how the world interacts with me."
Racheal, outside student
Walls to Bridges (W2B) is an innovative educational program that brings together incarcerated ("inside") and non-incarcerated ("outside") students to study university-level courses in jails and prisons across Canada.
By providing access to education for incarcerated peoples and through collaborative scholarly inquiry with university-based students, W2B classes offer opportunities to understand the complexities of criminalization and punishment through lived experiences and intersectional analyses. This is a transformational educational experience which draws upon lived experience as a source of theorizing as well as challenges the artificial boundaries between people experiencing imprisonment and those who are not.
The W2B staff, students, and instructors are tremendously grateful for the support extended so generously to the program, without which this impactful work would not be possible.
We want to thank and recognize the Lyle S. Hallman Foundation – it was their financial backing that enabled W2B to flourish and expand our work to other parts of Canada.
We also want to thank and acknowledge the wonderful support of the Kitchener Waterloo Community Foundation. Their generous contributions have made a significant impact on the success and growth of our local programming.
The Social Innovation Research Group (SIRG) is inspired by the Faculty of Social Work's commitment to community development and desire to support students wanting to learn the complex nuances of community based research with equity-seeking populations.
Our passion is for community-based research and our collaboration with community members to identify a topic of practical relevance and leverages research as a tool to educate and promote positive change. Our collaborations include OK2BME, the Poorhouse project, and the Change project just to name a few.
The Manulife Centre for Community Health Research (MCCHR) is an interdisciplinary community development and research centre guided by multiple determinants of health. MCCHR is an incubator for students committed to community-based scholarship and development in the field of health and well-being.
The centre acts as a bridge between the university and the larger community in order to enhance innovation and creative working partnerships with individuals, social welfare, public, non-profit and for-profit entities. We believe and honour the idea that universities should be of service to the communities in which they operate.
The Global Adversity and Wellbeing Research Group explores the connections between extreme adversity — such as poverty, war, and climate change — and wellbeing, emphasizing the concepts of place theory with a particular focus on family and home.
Some core research areas of the group include parenting in the context of war, domicile as a human rights violation, and global social systems strengthening.
Learn more about the groups' research projects and initiatives.
