Disrupting and building a \u27Sense of community\u27: a case study of the Northern Medical Program.

Since the early 1980s, stresses associated with health care restructuring have led to concerns about long-term access to physicians in northern BC communities. The Northern Medical Program at UNBC was established to enhance the supply of physicians who want to live and work in northern BC. Previous research suggests that a strong sense of community among care providers can improve the efficiency and provision of health care services. However, it is unclear how changes associated with the implementation of the NMP have impacted the sense of community, through relationships and networks, of those physicians currently practicing in northern BC. Using key informant interviews with physicians in Prince George, BC, this paper explores how the NMP has impacted the sense of community amongst physicians by building or disrupting relationships and networks. While results suggest that relationships and networks have been disrupted in the short-term, the NMP has provided another venue for building relationships and networks to support the long-term viability of health care

New mobile realities in mature staples-dependent resource regions: Local governments and work camps

In resource-dependent regions, work camps have reshaped workforce recruitment and retention strategies and relationships with communities as they are increasingly deployed within municipal boundaries. This has prompted important, but controversial, questions about local government policies and regulations guiding workforce accommodations to support rapid growth in resource regions. Even as mobile workforces become more prevalent, however, few researchers have examined the development, operations, and decommissioning of these work camps. Drawing upon the experiences of local governments in Australia, Canada, Scotland, and the United States, this research examines how mobile workforces are shaping the opportunities and challenges of planning and local government operations through work camps integrated in mature staples-dependent resource regions. Our findings reveal that while some industries have taken the initiative to implement new protocols and operating procedures to improve the quality and safety of work camp environments, local governments have underdeveloped policy tools and capacities to guide the development, operations, and decommissioning of work camps. Failure to purposefully address work camps as a land-use issue, however, is significant for mature staples-dependent towns that ultimately fail to capture taxation revenues while incurring the accelerating costs for infrastructure and services associated with large mobile workforces

Tree Variational Autoencoders

We propose Tree Variational Autoencoder (TreeVAE), a new generative hierarchical clustering model that learns a flexible tree-based posterior distribution over latent variables. TreeVAE hierarchically divides samples according to their intrinsic characteristics, shedding light on hidden structures in the data. It adapts its architecture to discover the optimal tree for encoding dependencies between latent variables. The proposed tree-based generative architecture enables lightweight conditional inference and improves generative performance by utilizing specialized leaf decoders. We show that TreeVAE uncovers underlying clusters in the data and finds meaningful hierarchical relations between the different groups on a variety of datasets, including real-world imaging data. We present empirically that TreeVAE provides a more competitive log-likelihood lower bound than the sequential counterparts. Finally, due to its generative nature, TreeVAE is able to generate new samples from the discovered clusters via conditional sampling.Comment: Accepted as Spotlight to NeurIPS 202

On the Edge in Rural Canada: The Changing Capacity and Role of the Voluntary Sector

ABSTRACT Since the 1980s, neoliberal policies have downsized or closed rural and small-town services. In response, voluntary groups have played an increasing role to retain basic supports. How voluntary groups are impacted, and how they react, will affect community development. Drawing upon our research across northern BC and Canada, this article explores the changing role of voluntary groups, with a focus on the structural and institutional barriers impeding their renewal. Our research suggests that voluntary organizations have been diversifying their human and financial capital, expanding partnerships, and developing smart infrastructure to enhance their capacity. More place-based policies and programs are needed to: renew relationships; create synergies; stabilize operations; renew mandates and procedures; develop training supports; enhance development expertise; build diversity, capacity, and support for volunteers; and develop information management systems.   Résumé Depuis les années 80, des politiques néolibérales ont entraîné la diminution ou l’élimination de divers services dans les communautés rurales. En conséquence, les groupes bénévoles ont joué un rôle grandissant dans la préservation de services de base. Le traitement des bénévoles et leurs réactions face à ce traitement ont ainsi un impact sur le développement communautaire. Cet article a recours à notre recherche dans le nord de la Colombie-Britannique et ailleurs au Canada pour explorer le rôle changeant des groupes bénévoles dans un contexte où des défis structurels et institutionnels peuvent nuire à leur renouveau. Notre recherche laisse entendre que, pour accroître leurs capacités, les organisations bénévoles sont en train de diversifier leur capital humain et financier, augmenter le nombre de leurs partenariats et développer une infrastructure intelligente. Il faut davantage de politiques et programmes qui tiennent compte du milieu afin de : renouveler les relations; créer des synergies; stabiliser les opérations; reformuler les mandats et procédures; appuyer les activités de formation; accroître l’expertise en développement; augmenter l’aide aux bénévoles ainsi que leur diversité et leurs capacités; et développer de meilleurs systèmes de gestion de l’information

A New Lens: Using the Policy, Systems, and Environmental Framework to Guide Community Development

Extension is uniquely positioned to deliver data-driven solutions to complex community issues with University applied research, particularly through crises like COVID-19. Applying the Policy, Systems and Environmental (PSE) framework to community development is an effective, innovative approach in guiding Extension leaders to create, document, and share long-term transformative change on challenging issues with stakeholders. Beyond the public health sector, applying a PSE approach to community development provides leverage points for population-level benefits across sectors. This article describes current public health approaches, methodologies, and how the PSE framework translates to other programs with four examples of high-impact, systems level Extension projects

“We're in this all together”: community impacts of long-distance labour commuting

Labour and economic development patterns in rural regions have shifted substantially as a by-product of both economic and political restructuring. An important manifestation of this restructuring has been the growth of long distance labour commuting (LDLC) associated with increased labour flexibility and worker/family preference. In this article, we draw upon research in Mackenzie, British Columbia (BC), Canada, to explore the broader impacts of LDLC on a home community from a series of different perspectives. Our findings focus on two core themes: (1) family and community dynamics; and (2) the capacity of community organizations. Numerous negative outcomes associated with LDLC were found, including family stress and volunteer burnout. Our research also revealed a variety of positive dimensions associated with LDLC, including the ability to continue to call Mackenzie home and a strengthened sense of community. The experience in Mackenzie offers important themes for research in other communities and places experiencing LDLC

Labour Mobility in Northern BC: Final Report

More than three decades of restructuring has transformed the nature of work and community relationships in resource producing regions. Rapid industrial activity is expected to increase the influx of mobile workers to address labour shortages, particularly during project construction periods. With a very competitive labour landscape provincially, nationally, and globally, labour shortages are anticipated for many phases of resource-based infrastructure and development projects. Labour mobility can have important implications for workers, work environments, and can reshape family and community relationships. It is important for stakeholders to understand these impacts in order to inform strategic investments in infrastructure and supports for workers and their families throughout all phases of large-scale industrial projects