Our scientific excellence advances knowledge in partnership with stakeholders
- We shifted our focus from understanding caregivers’ needs to empowering caregivers’ goals about their own well-being and sustainability and enhanced our understanding of how technology can support their goals with funding from AGE-WELL NCE, Canada’s technology and aging network (2015-2020).
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We conceptualized and empirically created family care trajectories across the life course with funding from the Kule Institute for Advanced Study (2016-2019) and AGE-WELL NCE, Canada’s technology and aging network.
- We conducted a feasibility study to collect evidence about employers’ and their caregiver employees’ experiences with and beliefs about how Assistive Technologies can help them integrate, manage or balance paid work and care work roles with funding from AGE-WELL NCE, Canada’s technology and aging network (2015-2020). Connecting Working Caregivers Project Summary
- We investigated older workers’ Information and Communication Technology (digital literacy) skills with funding from AGE-WELL NCE, Canada’s technology and aging network (2015-2020).
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We contributed to the development of Huddol, the first cross-disease, cross-platform, social health network that helps family and friend caregivers connect with each other and health care professionals with funding from AGE-WELL NCE, Canada’s technology and aging network (2015-2020).
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We co-created with older adults illustrated short films that reflect common problems older persons may experience and designed ‘things’ as potential solutions with funding from AGE-WELL NCE, Canada’s technology and aging network (2015-2020).
- We assessed the needs of employed caregivers and employers with funding from Caregivers Alberta (2014-2015).
- We co-created an evidence-based Quality of Life card sort for older adults living in affordable housing with funding from GEF Seniors Housing (2014-2015) that informed their quality of life philosophy and programming about ways to enhance the quality of life of the 4,000 seniors who call GEF home.
- We determined the economic costs of care incurred by family/friend caregivers and employers with funding from Human Resources and Skills Development Canada (2010 – 2013) in collaboration with co-investigators from the University of Guelph and the University of Manitoba.
- We explored theatre as a pathway to healthy aging with funding from a CIHR UK joint initiative (2010-2012) in collaboration with a local intergenerational theatre company, GeriActors and Friends, and co-investigators from Trent University and the UK NDA Ages and Stages research program.
- We explored the connectivity of older adults in rural communities with funding from a CIHR UK joint initiative (2009-2011) and in collaboration with co-investigators from the University of Manitoba and the UK NDA Grey and Pleasant Land research program, subsequently expanding this research to rural communities in Australia.
- We led the Hidden Costs, Invisible Contributions (HCIC) research program (2003-2008) with funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Major Collaborative Research Initiative, making explicit the hidden costs of care and making visible the contributions of ‘dependent’ adults.