Training Program
OUR PROGRAM DEVELOPS TRAINING AND MENTORING OPPORTUNITIES TO HELP FOSTER A CULTURE OF PATIENT-ORIENTED RESEARCH THAT WILL POSITIVELY IMPACT HEALTH RESEARCH IN CANADA AND IMPROVE OUTCOMES FOR PATIENTS AND THEIR FAMILIES.
In 2021-22, our Training Program continued developing capacity in patient-oriented research (POR) throughout the network. We focused on enhancing the training experience of students and trainees while providing research teams with training opportunities on advanced POR topics. In 2021-22:
We enhanced POR capacity by offering a suite of training events
We developed and launched our new virtual bi-monthly Patient-Oriented research Discussions (PODs), in partnership with our Graduate Fellowship recipients. The PODs are an open forum designed to facilitate the exchange of ideas and explore topics, questions, or resources that enhance patient engagement in research. In the 2021, we hosted four sessions:
"One of the Training team's proudest achievements in Phase 1 has been our ability to adapt to the pandemic, like with our diverse Patient-Oriented research Discussions (PODs) series."
Kent Cadogan Loftsgard, CHILD-BRIGHT Patient-Partner & Training Committee member
Through our ongoing annual Learning Series webinars, we also continued to explore practical considerations in relation to POR. CHILD-BRIGHT’s National Youth Advisory Panel members as well as members from our broader network facilitated this year’s series:
CHILD-BRIGHT’s Training Innovation Fund funded the development of a suite of simulation-based learning vignettes and associated facilitation guides. Hosted at Holland Bloorview, the Client and Family Engagement in Research Simulations are designed for research teams and patients/families to co-learn and address complex challenges experienced by patients and scientists when partnering in family-centered research in childhood disability.
We also hosted our second Virtual Symposium and improved it based on feedback from the previous year. For instance, we expanded the schedule to provide more opportunities for projects focused on childhood brain-based developmental disabilities to provide updates and address questions from the community.
We developed capacity for the next generation of patient-oriented researchers with two opportunities
Celia Laur is the new Phase 2 co-lead of the Training & Capacity Building Program
Kent Cadogan Loftsgard is a long-time CHILD-BRIGHT Patient-Partner and Training Committee member
We offered the Graduate Student Fellowship in Patient-Oriented Research for a second time to enhance the training experience of graduate students and postdoctoral fellows engaged with POR projects related to childhood brain-based developmental disabilities. In 2021-22, we supported six candidates across Canada with over $55,000 in funding.
We also awarded $40,000 in financial support to 14 students via our fifth annual Summer Studentship Program. This supported their summer work with eight of our CHILD-BRIGHT research project teams.
In anticipation of CHILD-BRIGHT’s Phase 2 launch, we welcomed Celia Laur as co-lead of our Phase 2 program, which will be renamed the Training & Capacity Building Program. Celia’s expertise in Implementation Science and education will inform our training activities over the next four years. We also strengthened our partnerships with key representatives from CHILD-BRIGHT’s new Implementation Science (IS), Knowledge Mobilization (KM), and Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, Decolonization and Indigenization (EDI-DI) Programs to highlight training needs and areas for collaboration. We are focusing our efforts on introducing these new topic areas, while identifying the specific learning needs of our network members and project teams so we can better deliver targeted training activities.
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