$2.5 million CIHR grant invests in youth-led research to improve health and wellness services

It can be hard for youth facing challenges with mental health and wellness to find the supports and services they need to thrive. Services are often fragmented and difficult to access for some populations. 

New funding from the Government of Canada, through the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), together with partners including Indigenous Services Canada looks to address this issue by supporting the work being done by Integrated Youth Services (IYS) organizations across Canada.

IYS hubs support youth aged 12 to 25 and their families with a single, accessible place to find help with issues including mental health, substance use, physical health, housing, peer support and other essential services. The new investment provides more than $30 million over four years to projects across Canada through CIHR’s IYS Network of Networks (IYS-Net) Initiative to support research, data and knowledge sharing.

Funding will allow for expansion into rural, remote and Indigenous communities

Alberta’s IYS Hub is called Kickstand, and as University of Calgary, Faculty of Social Work professor and principal investigator Dr. Gina Dimitropoulos PhD, explains, the new funding will help to expand Kickstand to more locations across the province, including rural, remote and Indigenous communities. 

The large project will also support two phases of research that includes (in addition to Dimitropoulos), Faculty of Social Work researchers Dr. Marlyn Bennett, PhD, Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Children's Wellbeing, Dr. Angelique Jenney, the Wood's Homes Research Chair in Children's Mental Health, Dr. Victoria Burns, PhD, founder and director of UCalgary’s Recovery Community and the Recovery on Campus Alberta, and Dr. David Nicholas PhD, who is currently serving as acting dean of social work. The province-wide, transdisciplinary initiative will also include UCalgary researchers from: 

Faculty of Arts

• Dr. David Hodgins, PhD
• Dr. Jennifer Thannhauser, PhD
• Dr. Andrew Szeto, PhD

Cumming School of Medicine 

• Dr. Paul Arnold, MD, PhD,
• Dr. Bukola Salami, PhD, Pamela Roach, PhD,
• Dr. Katrina Milaney, PhD,
• Dr. Zack Marshall, PhD,
• Dr. Maria Santana, PhD,
• Dr. Fariba Aghajafari, MD, PhD,
• Dr. Valerie Taylor, MD, PhD
• Dr. Kay Rittenback, PhD
• Dr. Fiona Clement, PhD 

Faculty of Nursing 

• Dr. Julia Hews-Girard PhD

Kinesiology 

• Dr. Jennifer Zwicker, PhD 

Schulich School of Engineering 

• Dr. Geoffrey Messier, PhD 

The province-wide research project also includes researchers from Mount Royal University, the University of Alberta and the University of Lethbridge. 

The goal is to bring together different systems such as employment services, social services, primary care and specialized mental health programs to meet the varying needs of diverse youth by creating greater integration and continuity of care. 

“The first phase of the project, called Kickstand360, is about developing a learning health system, co-designed with diverse youth, that will support each Kickstand site in the province to make data informed decisions about how to improve care, access and service transitions,” says Dimitropoulos who is cross appointed with the UCalgary departments of Psychiatry and Pediatrics and a member of the Hotchkiss Brain Institute (HBI), the Mathison Centre for Mental Health Research and Education, the Alberta Children's Hospital Research Institute (ACHRI), the Owerko Centre at ACHRI and the O'Brien Institute for Public Health. 

“Each Kickstand centre will have their own learning health system, to learn about what data to collect, how to collect the data, when to collect the data in a way that's youth-friendly, culturally safe and trauma informed and that will help drive changes at a policy and practice level.”

Youth-led research vital to the project’s success

For many youth facing mental health and wellness challenges, getting the right supports at the right time can be a difficult journey. 

Meaningfully engaging youth with lived experience in the research is the vital second phase and the new funding allows for the creation of the StandOUT lab, designed to build capacity, training and the co-production of research projects related to Kickstand. 

StandOUT will provide six internships to youth from each of the Kickstand communities, matching them with one of the grant’s researchers, who will either partner with them or support them in leading their own research question. 

“I think the youth know best,” says Dimitropoulos, “They have lived experience. They're from that community. They know what the issues are in their community, because what a Kickstand center looks like in Edmonton will be very different from one in Medicine Hat or from an Indigenous community.

“So, the youth from those communities can help us identify the unique ‘cracks’ in their community and can also identify the strengths and opportunities for change in their community, amplifying where things are going well.  We also want to build capacity and support youth led research to improve outcomes for youth. They’re going to teach us a lot, and we want to help support and build capacity in them - to think about the possibilities that lie ahead for them as young people to maybe pursue research careers as well.”