Creative Outputs
Agency in Full Colour: Embracing Complexity and Creativity
Created by Grace Norris
This comic strip, created by CRED lab member Grace Norris as part of her doctoral research, illustrates how conventional views of agency exclude certain groups of people from being recognized as an agential human being. Her choice to draw parallels between children/youth and older adults living with cognitive impairments was done to highlight how different groups of people experience a similar challenge in both unique, yet comparable ways. Her hope for this project is not to compare children/youth and older adults with cognitive impairments, but rather to highlight how they both uniquely face a similar challenge.
Family Caregiving of Disabled Children in Families from Collectivist Cultures
Created by Gurleen Sandhu
This video, created by CRED lab member Gurleen Sandu, explores how families from collectivist cultures could experience and enact the occupation of caregiving that differs from dominant narrative surrounding caregiving of disabled children. Specifically, perspectives from Sikhi and childhood ethics are considered.
IHDCYH Talks Video Competition
Created by Dr. Katie Mah
“If there even is recovery at all”: Insights on concussion recovery from young people.
This video showcases the ways Dr. Katie Mah and the CRED research team has partnered with youth living with concussion to explore their first-hand experiences and understandings of concussion ‘recovery’ (e.g., what recovery looks like, how youth describe their own recovery) using film-based research methods. To view the full gallery of videos made by participants, click here.
Special Thanks
We extend a special thank you to our participants, without whom this work would not have been possible.
The Research Team
Gail Teachman, Director, Occupational Therapist & Researcher
Dr. Gail Teachman is the Director of the CRED Research Lab. She is an Assistant Professor at Western University’s School of Occupational Therapy where her research is focused on examining the social, ethical and political contexts that shape how childhood disability is understood and acted on, with a view to expanding possibilities for children identified as disabled to flourish. Dr. Teachman’s research is informed by critical disability studies, childhood ethics, critical social theory and occupational science perspectives. She is committed to ensuring that CRED research contributes knowledge that has been directly informed by children’s perspectives on living with disabilities so that their views can be given due weight in the design of programs and services that directly impact their lives. In order to advance knowledge of the participation, inclusion and occupations of disabled children and youth and improve understandings of how their lives, identities, and moral experiences are influenced by rehabilitation practices, Dr. Teachman is developing innovative participatory research approaches.
Dr. Katie Mah is a Mitacs Postdoctoral Fellow in the CRED (Childhood Rehabilitation Ethics & Disability Research) Lab at Western University and the NOvEL (Neurorehab Outcomes via Education & Learning) Lab at Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital. Her research is also funded by VOICE (Views on Interdisciplinary Childhood Ethics) at McGill University. She is a critical qualitative health researcher in the emerging field of Critical Rehabilitation Studies. Employing critical qualitative and arts-based methodologies, Katie’s current work explores how concussion ‘recovery’ is discursively understood by young people. Drawing on her background in nursing and occupational therapy, as well as her lived experience of concussion, Katie’s research aims to disrupt conventional ways of thinking and knowing about concussion and young people, while challenging clinicians and researchers to (re)imagine concussion education, care, and research. For her doctoral work she was awarded a Pursuit Award by the Bloorview Research Institute (Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital) and named 2021 recipient of the highly regarded Joan Eakin Award for Methodological Excellence in a Qualitative Dissertation (Centre for Critical Qualitative Health Research, University of Toronto).
Youth Concussion Recovery
Research Partners
Funding Support Provided By
Western University
Mitacs Elevate Postdoctoral Fellowship Project Funding
Kimel Family Opportunities Fund, Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital Foundation
VOICE Innovation Grant, Newton Foundation, McGill University