CQ holds Extra-Departmental Unit C (EDU-C) status and works under the dean of Dalla Lana School of Public Health.
Directors
The Director of CQ, Dr. Brenda Gladstone, is the former Associate Director of CQ (2016-2018) and an Assistant Professor at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, where she teaches Foundations of Qualitative Inquiry (CHL 5131) and the compulsory CQ certificate course Qualitative Analysis and Interpretation (CHL 5115). At CQ, she has been the leader of our community of practice for methodological innovation, including projects on arts-based approaches to qualitative health research (QHR) and participatory approaches to engage children and youth in the research process. Dr. Gladstone’s expertise on qualitative methodologies applied to sociology of childhood and sociology of mental health and illness have been acknowledged internationally, most notably as a Visiting Scholar in Australia and Norway. Presently, she is working with Austrian and Norwegian colleagues in an innovative project adopting open innovation in science (OIS) principles to establish research priorities in children’s mental health and examine the methodological implications of this approach to citizen science, as well as promoting the advancement of QHR graduate education in countries such as Australia, Norway and Brazil.
The Associate Director of CQ, Dr. Gail Teachman, is Assistant Professor at the School of Occupational Therapy, Western University and an Academic Fellow at CQ since 2017. She has previously taught the course JRP 1000 Theory and Method of Qualitative Health Research as a contribution to CQ’s curriculum. Dr. Teachman’s research advances interdisciplinary studies of childhood ethics in the context of disability and rehabilitation. She has developed innovative methodological approaches for doing qualitative research with disabled children and youth, including those with communication impairments. Locally, Dr. Teachman is leading the development of a partnership model for meaningfully engaging disabled youth in research; internationally, she is collaborating to adapt qualitative methodologies for culturally-safe and attuned research with disabled youth in Zambia. She is a co-investigator with the McGill University initiative VOICE (Views on Interdisciplinary Childhood Ethics), which brings together researchers, community partners, and stakeholders to promote research and practice development in this field.
Former Directors
From 2014 to 2018, Dr. Denise Gastaldo served as Director of CQ.
From 2009 to 2014, Dr. Joan Eakin, now Professor Emerita in the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, was the founding director.
Contributing Partners
CQ is an extra-departmental unit located in the Dalla Lana School of Public Health. Several other health sciences faculties and departments at the University of Toronto make financial or in-kind contributions towards supporting CQ’s research and educational activities. For the 2016-17 year, these partners include:
- The Factor Inwentash Faculty of Social Work
- The Faculty of Kinesiology and Physical Education
- Lawrence S. Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing
- Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy
- Rehabilitation Sciences Institute
Advisory Board
CQ’s Advisory Board provides oversight and guidance to the director regarding 1) the needs of the qualitative research community and the health sciences academic community and 2) initiatives to enhance the Centre’s contribution to research and education. Board members in 2017-2018 included: Dr. Ellen MacEachen (University of Waterloo), Dr. Eric Mykhalovskiy (York University), and Dr. Heather Boon (Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Toronto). Adjunct fellows Dr. Azucena Pedraz Marcos (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid) and Dr. Alex Branco Fraga (Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul) joined the CQ advisory board to add an international perspective in May of 2018.
The centre acknowledges contributions from the previous members of the Advisory Board: Dr. Mathieu Albert of The Wilson Centre (until 2017), Jessica Polzer, University of Western Ontario (2012-2014), Brian Hodges, Wilson Centre, University of Toronto (2010-2012), Katherine Boydell (Hospital for Sick Children).
