Wâhkôhtowin: the governance of good community-academic research relationships to improve the health and well-being of children in Alexander First Nation

Community-based participatory research (CBPR) is a promising decolonizing approach to health and social sciences research with First Nation Peoples. In CBPR, the use of a community advisory committee can act as an anchoring site for trusting reciprocal relationships, collaborative decision-making, and co-learning and co-creation. Through a qualitative case study, this article illustrates the collective experiences of a well-established, multidisciplinary, and intersectoral committee that reviews, monitors, and guides multiple research projects in a First Nation community in Canada. Participants of the Alexander Research Committee (ARC) share examples of the value of fostering a high level of commitment to building both positive working relationships and learning spaces that ultimately result in research and policy impacts for their community

Evaluating the adequacy of social-emotional measures in early childhood

Technical adequacy and usability are important considerations in selecting early childhood social-emotional (SE) screening and assessment measures. As identification of difficulties can be tied to programming, intervention, accountability, and funding, it is imperative that practitioners and decision makers select appropriate and quality measures from the plethora of measures available. This study systematically reviewed and evaluated the technical adequacy and usability of 10 commonly used SE assessment and screening measures, using a framework for evaluating selected properties of measures (e.g., reliability, validity). Through this review, it was found that there are inadequacies in many commonly used SE measures, deserving the attention of both users and developers

Creating inclusive parent engagement practices: lessons learned from a school community collaborative supporting newcomer refugee families

Parental engagement in education has proven to be important to children's academic success. Research suggests that when parents are involved in their children's schooling, children tend to be motivated learners, have high educational aspirations, get good grades, and experience a sense of school belonging (Cheung & Pomerantz, 2012; Hill et al., 2004; Kuperminc, Darnell, & Alvarez-Jimenez, 2007). Research also shows that the advantages of parental involvement benefit all students, including minority and immigrant students (Jeynes, 2003). In light of globalization, schools in many Western countries such as Canada and the United States receive large numbers of immigrant and refugee students each year. As a result of these demographic shifts, ways to engage culturally diverse parents are gaining increased attention in the literature. Interest in best practices and models of working with culturally diverse families is growing. This article seeks to contribute to this body of knowledge by reporting on a case study of refugee parent engagement. Specifically, this article reports on how inclusive parent engagement was understood and facilitated in the context of a multi-agency program for refugee families in an urban center in Western Canada