Project Description
The STRENGTH project was a three-year (2017-2020) community-based, participatory action pilot study to design a women led, strengths based, trauma and violence informed model of outreach in the Downtown Eastside Neighbourhood of Vancouver, British Columbia. STRENGTH stands for Sisters Together Reaching Every New Goal Towards Healing.
The STRENGTH project was built upon the expertise and leadership of women in community. The Inner-City Women’s Initiatives Society (ICWIS) was the lead community partner and together with women, they built a community advisory committee (CAC) to co-lead the project. The CAC was established as a key advisory and decision-making body for the project as a whole. Sharing from their experiential expertise, the CAC ensured that women’s safety was upheld at all times, that the research was ethical and the results meaningful for participants and the community as whole. Our participatory action research (PAR) approach involved researchers, health and social service leaders/staff and women experiencing violence.
Using a strengths-based approach that recognized women’s resilience as well as the impacts of ongoing and historical trauma, outreach teams worked to build trust and relationships between outreach workers and self-identifying women. Outreach teams worked with women in identifying their goals and needs and, in partnership, supported them to engage with services and supports to address their goals.
KxMob
- Report: STRENGTH Pilot Study
- Infographic: The STRENGTH project summary of findings
- Publication: Co-designing an Outreach Intervention
- Publication: Protocol for a scoping review
- Publication: Conceptualization, operationalization, implementation, and measurement of outreach
The Team
This research project was based in Vancouver, British Columbia with Principal Investigators Dr. Vicky Bungay, UBC School of Nursing (Academic Co-lead), and Linda Dewar, Inner-City Women’s Initiatives Society (Community Co-lead).
Research, service and community team members included Adrian Guta, Cecilia Benoit, Colleen Varcoe, Kasari Govender, Greta Pauls, Wendy Bungay, Liz Moss, and Briony Metcalfe.
Community Advisory Committee (CAC) members included Jade Cosa, Chase Engh, Mary Schoening, and Sandra Walker.
Partnering organizations included Inner-City Women’s Initiatives Society; Rise Women’s Legal Centre; West Coast LEAF; University of Windsor; Nova Scotia Department of Community Services, and GRID Networks Inc.
Contact Information
Principal Investigator
Dr. Vicky Bungay
604.822.7933
vicky.bungay@ubc.ca
Funded By
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research
Vancouver Foundation