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Panel to talk about social justice for a more empathetic world (Disponible seulement en anglais) A CFI panel will engage young adults in reflecting on the importance of humanities and social sciences research in solving global challenges OTTAWA, ONTARIO — Young adults are navigating a rapidly changing world where climate change, social justice, and the economic and societal aftermath of the pandemic will be the defining events of their youth. But with change comes an extraordinary opportunity for this generation to embrace a more empathetic value system and define their own futures. To help mark its 25th anniversary, the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) will be holding a panel May 16, 2022 (from 3 to 4:30 EDT) , as part of the 2022 Congress of the Federation for Humanities and Social Sciences (FHSS). Moderator Lesley Gittings , University of Toronto Lesley Gittings is a postdoctoral research fellow with an interest in social justice, and the social and structural factors that shape health across the life course. Her research focuses on understanding and addressing gender inequities and social determinants of health for HIV and sexual and reproductive health (SRH)-related outcomes; and engaging participatory and community-based research approaches for the empowerment and well-being of adolescents from marginalized communities. Panelists Lindsay Galway , Lakehead University Lindsay Galway is an interdisciplinary health researcher trained in public health and environmental health. Her work spans the social, natural and health sciences, and aims to bring together multiple perspectives to comprehensively understand and collaboratively address complex social-ecological challenges, with a focus on climate change. Dr. Galway’s areas of expertise include: planetary health, ecological determinants of health, climate change and health, and environmental justice. Manu Sharma , Thompson Rivers University Manu Sharma is an Assistant Professor at Thompson Rivers University in the Faculty of Education and Social Work, where she teaches foundational courses in the Masters of Education program. Dr. Sharma’s research interests and publications in the field of education are based on equity initiatives, critical curriculum studies, social justice pedagogy, deficit thinking, action research, educational law and international teaching experiences. She is currently working on a project that analyzes social justice initiatives in six Canadian secondary schools. Rinaldo Walcott , University of Toronto Rinaldo Walcott is Professor of Black Diaspora Cultural Studies in the Women and Gender Studies Institute, and a member of the Graduate Program at the Institute of Cinema Studies at the University of Toronto. From 2002-07 he held the Canada Research Chair of Social Justice and Cultural Studies at Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. Dr. Walcott’s teaching and research is in the area of Black diaspora cultural studies and postcolonial studies, with an emphasis on questions of sexuality, gender, nation, citizenship and multiculturalism. The panel will include short presentations followed by a moderated open discussion among attendees and researchers about the importance of social sciences and humanities research in solving global challenges that matter to young people now, and in the future. While geared for young adults, the invitation to attend this panel session is open to everyone.

Canada Foundation for Innovation | Webinar Colleges Fund 2022 | EN

FCI-Fonds-colleges-Webinar-2022 by Innovation.ca

LGBTQ+ youth are more likely to have a smart phone than anybody else. About 95 or 96 percent of LGBT youth have smart phones. What we do know about the youth that are homeless is they always have a smart phone. So it may not be a fancy smart phone and they go to different organizations and different services like Starbucks to get WiFi. So that is almost the best way to get a hold of any young person, is through their smart phone. We've learned from a number of young people that we've worked with that when they're feeling depressed or when they're feeling suicidal, they will interact on their social media and they will get a lot of love and support from their friends on social media and that will in fact help them feel better. So young people are not calling a crisis hotline like they used to. They're in fact turning to social media to get love and support and advice. Of course there's limitations to that. But that's an interesting trend. As part of the SSHRC study that we call the Project Query, we did an online study of a little over 6,000 LGBT youth in Canada and the U.S. One of the things we learned when we just recently did an analysis of the transgender and gender nonconforming youth and how lifesaving their social media was to them. That in fact, having Instagram saved their life. And of course it's not the Instagram itself, it's who Instagram connects to them to. People who make them feel valued, give them social support, help them make choices and navigate the challenges of their daily lives because they talk these things through with them on social media, whether it's an individual chat or sometimes putting it out broadly. Because there's a real collective spirit I think that is often found online. Of course there's a lot of negativity and most research talks about all the negative aspects of information, communication technologies, particularly for youth. But one of the reasons that I decided to pursue this research is because it was not true in the same way for LGBT youth. When we started our “I will survive” study, which was maybe it'd be 2010, and we were trying to understand the influence of more media messages on LGBT youth, it was different even then. I mean, we had smartphones, but they weren't as omnipresent I think as they are now. And even then, the way that young people talked about the media was very much it's a one-way conversation, right? So they're essentially consumers of media. What we've seen since then is a way for young people to be part of the conversation and also become producers as well as consumers. So they're also able to shape the messages that they hear and respond to them as well as creating their own messages.

I do have to say that transitioning from working with victims of violence in a domestic violence shelter was similar to working with LGBT youth because so many of them have been victims of violence, certainly discrimination, abuse, a much higher likelihood of adverse childhood events of any kind. And even though at that point we didn't have the data, we certainly did have the practice-based data and the clinical information. And so that thinking from the lens of safety and protection became one of the things that I, that I transported with me. But something that was different when working with LGBT youth was when I would tell people I worked with women who had been abused by their partners and talked about working in the shelter, people sort of understood it was a common … there was a common understanding that this is something that shouldn't happen. And when I was working with, specifically when I first started working with LGBT youth back in 1998 essentially, I still had to make the case that LGBT youth deserved to be safe and didn't deserve to be beaten, that they weren't asking for it, that they just didn't have to straighten up. It was this interesting thing. At least — it doesn't really make it any better — but at least there's a bit of a social norm that domestic violence was something that was taboo and shouldn't happen, even though it does happen. At that point, it was really overt that, oh, you know, it's probably better for these LGBT kids, or we just called them gay kids at that point, but for these gay kids to be dead or, you know, parents would often say to kids, I wish you were a murderer instead of being gay. And they were constantly being kicked out and I was constantly trying to help, you know, figure out safe places for them to be. So there were some common elements I think that I transported with me. And then there were some other elements, the advocacy elements that I really had to continue to develop in terms of my skillset to be able to, I think really actively represent and support the young people that I was so lucky to work with.

Hear Faranak Farzan describe how COVID-19 and the opioid crisis in B.C. make finding different ways to treat mental health and addiction in young people more pressing than ever.

Hear Faranak Farzan describe how her research could be more reliable than pharmaceuticals.

Hear Faranak Farzan describe her seminal research paper published in early 2020 that shows it’s possible to predict how people with depression will respond to treatment.

Fabien Durif, directeur du Laboratoire de recherche en nouvelles Expériences Utilisateurs et en écoresponsabilité, le GreenUXlab, s'est entretenu avec la FCI. https://www.innovation.ca/fr/reussites/sadapter-habitudes-consommation-qui-nont-rien-constant

Fabien Durif, directeur du Laboratoire de recherche en nouvelles Expériences Utilisateurs et en écoresponsabilité, le GreenUXlab, s'est entretenu avec la FCI. https://www.innovation.ca/fr/reussites/sadapter-habitudes-consommation-qui-nont-rien-constant

Fabien Durif, directeur du Laboratoire de recherche en nouvelles Expériences Utilisateurs et en écoresponsabilité, le GreenUXlab, s'est entretenu avec la FCI. https://www.innovation.ca/fr/reussites/sadapter-habitudes-consommation-qui-nont-rien-constant

In this sound clip, Darko Odic, director of the University of British Columbia's Centre for Cognitive Development, discusses how developmental psychology research depends on having a space where parents and kids can feel at ease. Read the full story at: https://www.innovation.ca/story/thinking-quantitatively

Sound clip featuring Darko Odic, director of the University of British Columbia's Centre for Cognitive Development, discussing children's innate ability to estimate quantity. Read the full story at: https://www.innovation.ca/story/thinking-quantitatively

In this sound clip, Darko Odic, director of the University of British Columbia's Centre for Cognitive Development, describes “dyscalculia,” the mathematics equivalent of dyslexia. Read the full story at: https://www.innovation.ca/story/thinking-quantitatively

In this sound clip, Darko Odic, director of the University of British Columbia's Centre for Cognitive Development, reflects on how math curricula might be more successful if they took advantage of kids' intuitive sense of quantity. Read the full story at: https://www.innovation.ca/story/thinking-quantitatively

In this sound clip, Darko Odic, director of the University of British Columbia's Centre for Cognitive Development, describes a game to test toddlers' ability to count. Read the full story at: https://www.innovation.ca/story/thinking-quantitatively

In this sound clip, Kyly Whitfield of Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax connects the dots between mechanical rice milling and a rise in beriberi in Cambodia. Read the full story here: https://www.innovation.ca/story/mother-all-nutrition-labs

In this sound clip, Kyly Whitfield of Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax describes how breastfeeding & bottle feeding are different in more ways than we think. Read the full story here: https://www.innovation.ca/story/mother-all-nutrition-labs

Audio clip featuring Western University researcher Ryan Stevenson describing an example of a training session they run on children with autism to help them learn to better perceive the world around them. Read the full story here: https://www.innovation.ca/story/teaching-children-autism-how-perceive-world