CCYC Health In | Equity Conference

Additional authors: Cynthia Durbajhai (Intern Education Facilitator Help A Girl Out); Alisha Fisher (Programs Manager Help A Girl Out)

Menstrual health education is often delivered through generalized approaches that fail to address the cultural, racialized, socioeconomic, and linguistic realities impacting youth and families. Many youth continue to experience stigma, shame, misinformation, and barriers to accessing products, trusted adults, and supportive conversations about menstruation within schools, families, sports, and community spaces. This workshop explores menstrual health through an equity lens, examining how structural inequities contribute to period poverty across Ontario and Canada. Grounded in culturally responsive and trauma-informed practice, participants will explore youth-centered strategies and community-based approaches implemented through Help A Girl Out.

Young siblings of children with disabilities and chronic health conditions often carry hidden emotional and caregiving responsibilities that go unrecognized within health systems. This interactive workshop explores how a social prescribing lens can be used to identify, connect, and support young sibling caregivers through peer-based and family-centred approaches. Drawing on three real-world examples from hospital, rehabilitation, and research settings across Canada, presenters will share practical strategies for implementing virtual peer groups, sibling advisory councils, and low-barrier supports. Participants will leave with adaptable ideas to enhance equity-oriented care for siblings and families.

Community Social Pediatrics (CSP) is a model designed for children who are slipping through the cracks as the current system and resources do not meet their needs. Using a CSP model with a child-rights and trauma informed framework is important for the Saint John context, and NB in general. This is because the model supports the broader understandings of health through a critical lens as opposed to traditional models which focus on the individual level. The workshop aims to introduce the CPS model as an equity-focused model that meets the children’s needs and their families where they are.

Additional authors: Sugy Kodeeswaran (Executive Director, FNP, Sunnybrook); Anthony Levitt (Medical Director, FNP, Sunnybrook); Roula Markoulakis (Scientist, FNP, Sunnybrook); Liisa Kuuter (Program Manager, FNP, Sunnybrook)

Youth and families from equity-deserving communities (EDCs) often face systemic barriers to accessing mental health and social services, contributing to inequitable outcomes. This interactive workshop will share a practical, equity-informed approach to intentional community outreach, grounded in lessons from the BEACON project at Family Navigation Project. Attendees will explore how data can identify access gaps and priority populations, how targeted partnerships can strengthen community reach, and how quality improvement methods can refine outreach efforts over time. The session will provide practical tools, strategies, and reflection opportunities for organizations seeking to design more intentional, responsive, and effective outreach approaches.

Allyship and co-disruption are critical to advance the work needed to address racism, oppression and resulting inequities for patients, care partners, communities, learners, staff and healthcare professionals. This workshop will position participants to recognize and mitigate bias as well as model and establish positive allyship behaviors within learning environments and workplaces, speak up when inequities occur, and respond in face of microaggressions. Through a combination of storytelling, case discussions, and skill acquisition, this workshop will provide ways to foster critical dialogue about differences and equity, and share actionable tools to empower participants to advocate for themselves and others.

In Canada, there are almost two million young people under 30 who provide care to family members or loved ones who are ill, have disabilities, or problems related to aging. While providing care can be fulfilling, necessary, and meaningful, it also carries significant costs. Young carers face a “young carers’ penalty,” reflecting the adverse effects on health and wellbeing that arise when supports are lacking. Our workshop explores how young carers navigate health systems that rely on their labour, but rarely recognize them. Young carers will share what they wish health providers understood, and how care could be more inclusive./p>

The ‘Missing Middle’ represents a critical equity gap in healthcare access for transition-aged children and youth (16-24). It occurs when youth are deemed “too well” for hospital-based mental health and substance use (MHSU) care, but “too unwell” for community-based care alone. The Missing Middle Program at BC Children’s Hospital is advancing partnerships, research, and education to transform MHSU care systems with the goal of ensuring all young people receive timely and appropriate support. This workshop integrates practice and research findings centering youth, clinician, and caregiver perspectives to unpack the Missing Middle challenge and identify practice and systems-level solutions.

Newcomer families face disproportionate barriers to immunization in Canada, including language barriers, misinformation, system navigation challenges, and limited access to culturally responsive care. This interactive workshop will provide clinicians, public health professionals, and community partners with practical, evidence-informed strategies to improve vaccination experiences and access for newcomer families. Drawing on community-based participatory research and national newcomer health expertise, presenters will share actionable approaches for culturally safer vaccine conversations, community engagement, and systems-level advocacy. Participants will leave with tools they can immediately apply in clinical, public health, and community settings to improve vaccine confidence and equity for newcomer children and youth.

This workshop explores the Peer Research Assistant (PRA) model, a community-based approach that centres lived and living experience in shaping equitable health and social services. Drawing on the presenters’ diverse backgrounds and experiences as youth PRAs, and grounded in the work of the Family and Child Health Initiative (FCHI) at Trillium Health Partners in Peel Region, Ontario, this session examines how PRAs engage across the research process, from co-design to knowledge translation. Participants will examine community-based project examples and explore how the model can strengthen community trust, cultural relevancy, and meaningful inclusion in child and youth health research.

Additional authors: Judy Y So (Pediatric Resident Physician, University of British Columbia); Lisa Zhang (Medical Student, University of British Columbia); Jenna Lew-Cooke (Medical Student, University of British Columbia); Mimi Kuan (Research Coordinator, BC Children’s and Women’s Hospital); Esther J Lee (Pediatrician, Complex Care Program, BC Children’s Hospital); ‘Building Connections’ Family Partners

Children with medical complexity (CMC) account for 1% of Canadian children, however, they represent 37% of pediatric hospitalizations. Despite this, pediatric residents report limited confidence in caring for CMC while caregivers cite interactions with healthcare providers as a source of medical trauma. A communication skills curriculum for pediatric residents was co-created, co-facilitated, and co-led by physicians and caregivers of CMC. Beyond Building Connections explores how authentic partnerships between physicians, trainees, and family partners can enhance medical education and advance health equity. This workshop reflects on the process of engaging family partners as educators in teaching communication skills and therapeutic relationship-building.

Additional authors: Stephanie Baker Collins (Professor Emeritus, McMaster University, School of Social Work)

This interactive forum theatre workshop engages participants in exploring how education systems fail to meet the needs of homeless youth with intellectual disabilities (ID). As an anti-oppressive learning activity, forum theatre offers participants opportunities to critically engage with a filmed “scene” reflecting ableist systemic barriers homeless youth with ID experience in the education system. This scene was developed through extensive collaborative qualitative research with seven co-researchers with lived experience of ID and homelessness from the Partnering for Change (P4C) project, focusing on the insights of youth at the intersection of ID and homelessness and their experiences with the education system.

Additional authors: Kay Hillyer (Specialist – Peel Anti-Human Sex Trafficking Strategy)

This workshop will focus on the importance of ensuring that the individuals with lived experience who are consulted/speakers are at a point in their healing journey where they can provide the requested service without experiencing further harm, developing policies and practices that recognize the fluidity of consent, and identifying the complexities when utilizing youth with lived experience.