Search

Focusing on young people in Regent Park, Canada's first social housing project, this study emerged from a collaboration between university and community partners. It aimed to unpack young people's placemaking, exploring how they define and relate to their neighbourhood amidst the largest urban redevelopment in Canadian history. Following the community engagement in research (CEnR) framework and Freire's critical pedagogy, this study used arts‐based methods, including photovoice, photo elicitation, and neighbourhood mapping, with youth in Regent Park. Youth contributed to the study analysis through participating in photovoice activities. Thematic analysis was used to further solidify study findings. Five themes were generated: (1) a community‐like home and family, (2) organizations and physical spaces as resources, (3) good memories, (4) everyday life in Regent Park, and (5) redevelopment and neighbourhood safety as challenges. Despite the disruptions caused by the housing redevelopment, youth emphasized their sense of community, belonging, as well as their connections with the community. The findings contribute to placemaking literature in the context of social housing. Youth insight render practical and research implications. Please refer to the Supplementary Material section to find this article's Community and Social Impact Statement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Doctoral education in social work is critical in nurturing the stewards of the discipline. Universities across Canada, and elsewhere, are increasing admissions for bachelor and master of social work programs. Consequently, doctoral social work programs are expanding to educate and train new social work faculty. Extant literature on doctoral social work education is predominantly American. There are fourteen Canadian doctoral social work programs, yet no study has observed the state of these programs. Using two data sources, this article provides a snapshot of PhD social work student experiences in 2019–2020. The analysis of all doctoral social work students (n = 157) from the 2019 Canadian Graduate and Professional Student Survey (CGPSS) found that: a) the overall quality of social work PhD programs in Canada was rated by students as moderate; and b) financial obstacles may be an undue barrier to academic success. Furthermore, the analysis of an online survey of Canadian social work PhD students (n = 69) regarding their experience applying for doctoral fellowships and scholarships found that workshops significantly facilitated scholarship success, and that other institutional preparation activities were identified as valuable. These findings illuminate the current state of doctoral social work education in Canada with implications for research and education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The legalization of recreational cannabis consumption in Canada created a cultural conflict for international students from China, where the use of cannabis is heavily criminalized and deemed immoral. This conceptual paper theorizes this cultural conflict experienced by Chinese international students in Canada by applying three theories from macro to micro levels. Neoliberalism is first used to understand how this cultural conflict exposes collisions between the neoliberal West and the rising economic power of China as illustrated through Chinese students studying in Canada. Next, acculturation theory focuses on these students' cultural transition and provides further insight into potential strategies for their handling of specific cultural conflicts such as cannabis use. Lastly, Cloninger's theory of substance use is adopted to explore Chinese international students' individual reasoning about cannabis use, particularly how they make decisions based on evaluations of various conditions. Building upon the above analyses, an integrated conceptual model is further formed to help us understand Chinese students' potential perception of cannabis use in Canada. This conceptual framework provides an important theoretical and conceptual base for future research and practice, from which to further explore cannabis use in the context of cultural transition of different immigrant and migrant groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Negative social interactions (NSIs), defined as upsetting interpersonal encounters in daily life, are associated with adverse mental health conditions. Guided by an intersectional perspective, this study explored the impacts of gender, race and immigration status on the experiences of NSIs, using nationally representative data from the 2012 Canadian Community Health Survey-Mental Health (CCHS-MH). The sample consisted of 21,932 participants across Canada. Gender-specific multivariable logistic regression models were used to estimate the effects of race, immigrant status and the interaction term on the likelihood to experience NSIs. Study results showed that women (32.3 per cent) reported significantly more NSIs than men (25.4 per cent). For men, being an immigrant was significantly associated with a lower likelihood of experiencing NSIs; race did not have a significant effect on NSIs. Furthermore, the results revealed that racialised Canadian-born women were more likely to report NSIs than racialised immigrant women, whilst immigration status had no effect among white women. This study suggests the distinct influences of intersecting identities of race, gender and immigration status and that social workers should incorporate an intersectional lens when exploring clients' social relationships and environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives Despite the predominance of chronic disease clustering, primary care delivery for multimorbid patients tends to be less effective and often uncoordinated. This study aims to quantify racial–nativity inequalities in multimorbidity prevalence ≥3 chronic conditions), access to primary care, and relations to past-year subjective unmet health care needs (SUN) among older Canadians. Methods Population-based data were drawn from the Canadian Community Health Survey (2015–2018). Multivariable logistic regression was performed to estimate the likelihood of multimorbidity, sites of usual source of primary care (USOC), primary care coordination, and multidimensional aspects of SUN. The Classification and Regression Tree (CART) was applied to identify intersecting determinants of SUN. Results The overall sample (n = 19,020) were predominantly (69.4%) Canadian-born (CB) Whites (1% CB non-Whites, 18.1% White immigrants, and 11.5% racialized immigrants). Compared with CB Whites, racialized immigrants were more likely to have multimorbidity (adjusted odds ratio [AOR] = 1.35, 99% confidence interval [CI]: 1.13–1.61), lack a USOC (AOR = 1.41, 99% CI: 1.07–1.84), and report higher SUN (AOR = 1.47, 99% CI: 1.02–2.11). Racialized immigrants' greater SUN was driven by heightened affordability barriers (AOR = 4.31, 99% CI: 2.02–9.16), acceptability barriers (AOR = 3.11, 99% CI: 1.90–5.10), and unmet needs for chronic care (AOR = 2.71, 99% CI: 1.53–4.80) than CB Whites. The CART analysis found that the racial–nativity gap in SUN perception was still evident even among those who had access to nonpoorly coordinated care. Discussion To achieve an equitable chronic care system, efforts need to tackle affordability barriers, improve service acceptability, minimize service fragmentation, and reallocate treatment resources to underserved older racialized immigrants in Canada. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Anti-Asian racism in Canada has emerged from the COVID-19 pandemic and become more rampant. This article integrates Canadian postcolonialism, a critique of Canadian multiculturalism, and a framework of intergroup prejudice to conceptualize the covert anti-Asian racism that is entrenched in Canadian society. How COVID-19 exposes and "legitimizes" anti-Asian racism is further analyzed and included in this conceptualization. This conceptualization also includes social workers' leading roles in combating anti-Asian racism through reforming and integrating client interventions, cultural policy, social context, and offers directions that can guide future social work research and practice in improving social justice during this crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) permeated social work practice before coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). In addition to ICT-based formal services (e.g. e-counselling), social workers used ICTs informally as an adjunct to face-to-face practice. Building on our previous research, our cross-sectional online survey examined social workers' informal use of ICTs in four countries: Canada, the USA, Israel and the UK. The survey was administered through Qualtrics software among social workers across Canada (n  = 2,609), the USA (n  = 1,225), Israel (n  = 386) and the UK (n  = 134), and analysed using IBM SPSS Statistics version 26. The findings substantiate the ubiquitous use of informal ICTs in social work practice, as an adjunct to face-to-face treatment, across the four countries. Given the current, unprecedented context of COVID-19, we discuss the meaning of our findings related to access, ethical considerations (e.g. professional boundaries) and supervision in the context of restricted face-to-face practice. We discuss the implications for social work practice, education and research, and conclude that in the COVID-19 context, there is an even greater need for research, clinical discussion, supervision and policy on informal ICT use in social work practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This constructivist grounded theory study unpacks how Chinese youth in Canada navigate and negotiate their cultural identities. Participants aged 16 to 24 years (N = 22) were invited to provide a biographic account of where they were born and raised, the social contexts they interacted with, and how they grappled with their cultural identities growing up. Despite noting the differences between Chinese and Canadian cultures, participants found the concepts of culture elusive and questioned the categorical notion of culture. They indicated their cultural identity as being "in-between," and their identity development as an ongoing, nonlinear process, involving a constant exchange between them and their environments. Study results highlight the fluid and nonstatic nature of cultural identity development in the context of immigration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"Canadian Experience" is a paradox for many immigrants in Canada and contributes to their exclusion from the labour market. Through an analysis of Canadian English print media, from 2006 to 2011, we illustrate how "Canadian Experience" discourse places the responsibility of immigrant labour market integration on immigrants themselves and constructs their experiences of exclusion as non-racial. This is theorized as a "post-racial" strategy that relies on anti-racialism (avoidance of racial references) to deny the existence and effects of racism, thereby allowing the Canadian public to maintain its façade of innocence but perpetuates "racism without racists". The discourse de-historicizes postcolonial racial hierarchy and promotes a de-racialized neo-liberal model for immigrant inclusion. This has implications for anti-racism and settlement service provision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Online counselling is gaining momentum in the field of social work. The aim of this study was to understand the benefits, challenges and user experiences of a text-based online counselling programme for undergraduate students. Hosted by a social work school in a large, urban university in Canada, the counselling programme trains Master of Social Work (MSW) student counsellors to provide service online as well as offline. Qualitative content analysis was employed to analyse transcripts of 385 e-mail sessions and eighty-five chat exchanges between twenty-two MSW student counsellors and thirty-three undergraduate clients. Analysis identified advantages (increased accessibility, flexibility and immediacy; allowing room for reflections; increased sense of safety) and disadvantages (technical difficulties and increasing 'work-load'). This study provides evidence of the unique benefits and challenges of online counselling with undergraduate clients and illuminates user experiences that illustrate the uniqueness of online counselling practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lifestyle factors serve an important determinant of health and are critical to youths’ psychosocial development. This cross-sectional survey study aimed to assess the associations between lifestyle practices and mental health and substance use among a sample of 152 Chinese-Canadian youth in the Greater Toronto Area. Findings indicated that youths’ sedentary behaviors are linked to increased depressed mood, stress, and suicidal ideation. Moreover, a lack of healthy eating habits is associated with increased substance use. The use of a buddy program, installation of peer counseling, and an implementation of a holistic health policy may help promote healthy living for Chinese-Canadian youth. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]