CRWDP E-Alert April - June 2018 Upcoming Events I. Save the date! We will be holding our annual Disability and Work in Canada conference in early December this year. The focus of this year’s conference will be a review and discussion of a draft national strategy to make paid work and employment more accessible to all Canadians. II. The Canadian Association for Research in Work and Health (CARWH) is holding its upcoming conference in Vancouver from October 21-23. The conference fee for student early bird registration is only $325 ($364 including taxes) http://www.spph.ubc.ca/carwh2018/registration/. All CRWDP students attending are invited to join a meet and greet dinner event on Sunday October 21 at 7pm. Email Pam Lahey at laheypm@mcmaster.ca to get more details and/or to register for the dinner event. It promises to be loads of fun! We look forward to seeing you in Vancouver this October. III. CRWDP initiated a Student/New Researcher Webinar Series in May 2018. The 3rd in this series will be held on August 8. Dr. Margaret Oldfield is our panelist. Please join us as she speaks to lessons learned from her dissertation and subsequent projects on strategies for employers to retain workers with fibromyalgia. These are drawn from a research and outreach project she is currently developing with her community partners. She welcomes academic researchers who are interested in joining the project team to contact her through Pam Lahey (the Webinar Coordinator) at laheypm@mcmaster.ca. A webinar invitation for this and other webinars in the series will be sent out to our database of students and new researchers. Are you missing from this list? Please email Pam at laheypm@mcmaster.ca to have your name added. Others are also welcome to attend. We send notices of upcoming webinars to our regular CRWDP mailing list. If you are not on it, you can be added by registering at https://www.crwdp.ca/en/crwdp-newsletter-mailing-list. Events Recap I. CRWDP along with our partners CCRW, ONIWG and InclusionNL held a Policy Roundtable on Disability and Work in Canada: Developing a Vision and Strategy for the Future on June 26th in Gatineau, QC. Senior federal and provincial policymakers joined this event to discuss the challenges and opportunities for improving employment outcomes of persons with disabilities in Canada. Participants of the Roundtable reviewed and discussed the process for developing a national strategy, and brainstormed on short-, mid- and longer-term activities to move forward on the strategy. IV. Two Student/New researcher Webinars were hosted by CRWDP. The inaugural one was held on May 28th and a second one on July 4th. The panelist in May was Dr. Dustin Galer, former CRWDP post-doctoral fellow, and current collaborator. Dustin provided an overview of his new book, Work Disability in Canada and Working towards Equity: Disability Rights, Activism, and Employment. The book is available through the University of Toronto Press at https://utorontopress.com/ca/working-toward-equity-2. Dustin also spoke about a book he authored for CRWDP entitled Work Disability in Canada: Portraits of a System, available from CRWDP at https://www.crwdp.ca/en/crwdp-store. In the July Webinar, Dr. Cameron Crawford provided attendees with key findings from his CRWDP post-doctoral research on Decent Work. If you missed either or both of these webinars, do not despair. They were recorded. We will have podcasts available on our CRWDP site in the next few of months – stay tuned! II. A Roundtable on Inclusion was held on April 17th, 2018. It was organized by CRWDP NL Cluster members in SafetyNet, in collaboration with COD-NL, Empower, and the NL Federation of Labour. The Roundtable speakers included Kathy Hawkins (InclusionNL), Maureen Haan (CCRW), Chelsey McNeil (Choices for Youth), Emily Christy (Coalition of Persons with Disabilities NL), Mary Reid (Disability Policy Office, Government of NL), Noreen Golfman and Nicole Helwig (Memorial University), as well as CRWDP past and present students and new researchers Aleksandra Stefanovic, Dana Howse and Amy Sheppard. Agenda and speaker bios are available on the CRWDP website https://crwdp.ca/en/roundtable-inclusion-2018. The report from the Roundtable will be available at our website later in summer – stay tuned! Operations Activities I. We would like to introduce our new CRWDP Ontario Provincial Coordinator Shaza’a Fayyaz. Shaza’a Fayyaz is also a Centre Coordinator for York University Centre for Aging Research and Education within the Faculty of Health. She holds an honors bachelor’s degree in English & Cultural Studies and Sociology from McMaster University. Shaza’a has provided support for various initiatives relating to education, community engagement and marginalized and diverse populations. You can contact Shaza’a at shazfay@yorku.ca. Research Highlights I. We are pleased to announce two new Seed Grant Projects have been award from our 2018 Special Seed Grant call. Both projects are focusing on supporting young adults with disabilities in transition from school to work: * Jetha A (PI), Van Eerd D, Gignac MAM (Co-Investigators), with partners Proulx L (Canadian Arthritis Patient Alliance) and Wilson J (Cassie & Friends Society for Juvenile Arthritis and Other Rheumatic Disease). Accommodation roadmap for young adults living with chronic episodic and invisible health conditions. Host institution: Institute for Work & Health * Laberge M (PI), Jetha A, Breslin C, Moll S (Co-Investigators), with partners Boucher A (CSPI) and St-Pierre F (CSPI). Outils et méthode pour planifier l’attribution de Technologies de l’Information et des Communications (TIC) en soutien à l’insertion professionnelle des adolescents présentant des troubles d’apprentissage. Host institutions: Université de Montréal – CHU Sainte -Justine, and Institute for Work & Heath. II. Pam Lahey recently published an article exploring whether social determinants of health are considered in Ontario public policies associated with social assistance, using a health-promotion lens: * Lahey, P. M., Tompa, E., MacDermid, J. C., Kirsh, B. and Gewurtz, R.E. (2017) Placing health in welfare policy: A HiaP approach in Ontario Canada. Canadian Review of Social Policy/Revue Canadienne de Politique Sociale, Issue 77, Summer/Fall 2017, pp 67-95. The abstract is available: https://www.questia.com/library/journal/1P4-2002918056/placing-health-in-welfare-policy-a-hiap-approach III. A report examining the connection between disentitlement from WSIB and the recent growth in ODSP expenditures, was prepared by Amanda Richards, with interviews conducted and compiled by Sara Penny. Editorial assistance was provided by Jennefer Laidley, Terry Copes, Steve Mantis and John McKinnon. The report, entitled “Where did they go? Scoping the ability to track social assistance outcomes for injured workers” is available at: https://www.crwdp.ca/en/research/library. IV. A new publication from a CRWDP seed grant led by IWH’s Associate Scientist Arif Jetha was recently published: * Jetha A, Bowring J, Furrie A, Smith F, and Breslin C. Supporting the transition into employment: a study of Canadian young adults living with disabilities. Journal of Occupational Rehabilitation. 2018; [epub ahead of print]. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10926-018-9772-z. A summary of this report is available at: https://www.crwdp.ca/sites/default/files/Research%20and%20Publications/jetha_crwdp_summaryreport.docx V. The following presentation slides, presentation notes and a poster authored by CRWDP participants have been posted on the CRWDP website at https://www.crwdp.ca/en/presentations: * Why the Centre for Research on Work Disability Policy Matters: Reflections from Newfoundland and Labrador, by Barbara Neis and Stephen Bornstein. The presentation was made at the Occupational and Environmental Medical Association of Canada (OEMAC) 35th Annual Scientific Conference, June 11-13, 2017 * Garcia, V., Gagnon, M., Boucher, N., Laberge, M., Duchesne, L., Gaucher, C., Letscher, S., Dionne, C. La perception du marché du travail par les personnes ayant des incapacités à l’emploi et en recherche d’emploi, (affiche), Journée scientifique et assemblées annuelles REPAR-INTER 2018 en collaboration avec le CIRRIS et le CRIR, Québec, mai 2018. * A time for reflection: international work disability policy challenges and directions, by Ellen McEachen and Kerstin Ekberg. The presentation was made on April 30, 2018 at the International Congress on Occupational Health (ICOH) conference, Dublin, Ireland. The findings were presented that derive from the forthcoming book edited by Dr. MacEachen, "The Science and Politics of Work Disability Prevention", representing an international comparative analysis of work disability policy. * Centre for Research on Work Disability Policy: Mission, Structure and Key Activities, by Normand Boucher. The presentation was made on Feb 9, 2018 at McGill Centre for Human Rights and Legal Pluralism If you would like to share details of CRWDP-related publication and presentation, contact Kathy Padkapayeva kpadkapayeva@iwh.on.ca. Announcements I. To keep up-to-date on the activities and announcement in the BC Cluster, subscribe to the CRWDP BC Cluster Newsletter at: https://crwdp.us12.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=0e1e7193cc67e1626d49a8d3f&id=75ad86f03d II. The book “Work Disability in Canada – Portraits of a System" by Dustin Galer is available for purchase. Contact Kathy Padkapayeva kpadkapayeva@iwh.on.ca if you wish to purchase an e-copy or a printed soft-cover copy in a 9”x12” format. III. Check the updated Disability and Work in Canada conference webpage https://www.crwdp.ca/en/national-conference-disability-and-work-canada for presentation slides, photos and videos of the presentations from the conference. We will continue adding new videos in the upcoming months. We would like to thank Josh Clavir for his outstanding work on preparing the videos. Students and New Researchers News I. Did you know that the CRWDP site is a great way to promote yourself to industry leaders? We have a reach of over 500 stakeholders who work in the field. If you are a new researcher (student, post-doc, newly minted work disability policy expert), please let us know. We can post your profile and research on the CRWDP website. Further, why not be a panelist on a new researcher webinar. Contact Pam at laheypm@mcmaster.ca. Opportunities and News from Our Partner, Institute for Work & Health (IWH) I. Visit the new Institute for Work & Health (IWH) website to quickly find evidence-based resources on workplace disability management: https://www.iwh.on.ca/workplace-disability-management. II. Watch for the Summer 2018 edition of At Work, IWH’s quarterly newsletter, coming in early August. It features several relevant studies: 1) Building a business case for accommodating workers with mental illnesses (led by CRWDP Provincial Co-lead Rebecca Gewurtz), 2) a joint labour/management return-to-work initiative in an acute-care hospital that reduced injury rates and days away from work, and 3) the importance of social support in the return-to-work process. See: https://www.iwh.on.ca/newsletters/at-work. III. Be sure not to miss any IWH research on disability management and return to work. Sign up for the free monthly e-alert: www.iwh.on.ca/subscribe. To post your news/event in the next CRWDP e-alert, or to unsubscribe from the distribution list, send an email to Kathy Padkapayeva at kpadkapayeva@iwh.on.ca. 481 University Avenue, Suite 800 Toronto, Ontario M5G 2E9 T: 416-927-2027 E: info@crwdp.ca www.crwdp.ca