Critical Health and Social Action Lab

The CHSA Lab engages a variety of methods to support community research and innovation, tailoring our approach to the diverse priorities of each community. We are prepared to conduct various types of research, including community mapping, surveys, case studies, qualitative interviews, focus groups, multi-media and arts-based methods, archival research, and mental health impact assessments. These methods are often integrated with Indigenous approaches, such as land-based methods, sharing circles, intergenerational storytelling, and visiting. Additionally, the CHSA Lab often helps communities to embed research within community programming and assists in evaluating the impact of these programs. We also help communities to design initiatives for mental health and suicide prevention, language and cultural renewal, and child, youth, and family programming, while supporting education in these areas as our capacity permits.

We believe that high-quality partnerships flow from good relationships, and the most innovative ideas for research stem from communities themselves. We work to first develop an in-depth understanding of your priorities and assess what we can offer you. If your community would like to partner with us, we would love to hear from you. You can email us here. In the next 5 years, CHSA Lab is particularly committed to prioritizing partnerships focusing on the intersection of mental health, premature unnatural death (including suicide and drug poisoning), infrastructural health aspects (like housing, water and food security), environmental health (the impacts of climate change and industrial development), and political dimensions (like racist and colonial health care policy and practices). We also aim to support communities in their political struggles for self-determination, and to urgently address health justice as it intersects with public services, and are working to link all research outputs to policy and/or socio-legal advocacy, holding government to account, and promoting health transformation.

All of our research undergoes peer-review. All of our research is reviewed by university and/or community-based research ethics boards. All of our research Is informed by the Tri-Council Policy State on Ethical Conduction for Research, especially as it relates to research involving First Nations, Inuit, and Métis peoples. In our work with First Nations, the CHSA Lab upholds the First Nations principles of ownership, control, access, and possession – more commonly known as OCAP® across our research. More broadly, we work to apply the CARE Principles for Indigenous Data Governance, working to ensure the collective benefit of the research, the authority to control research rests with communities, responsible use of research data, and ethical research conduct. We also work to ensure that our research across Inuit Nanangat is in alignment with the National Inuit Strategy on Research, with all our current research licensed under the Nunavut Research Institute.

Every year the CHSA Lab typically trains 20 undergraduate and graduate students in fields of Indigenous health, social, and education scholarship. In addition to providing a context for training in clinical mental health research, under the supervision of registered psychologists and psychotherapists, we also support these students in training around advanced Indigenous health research methods. The CHSA Lab also offers our facilities to support other research education, including for the Rad Clinic, the Indigenous Literatures Lab, the Black Studies Cohort, the Black Trans Praxis Lab, and the #DecolonizingDigital Archive.