In the historic halls of the BC provincial legislature, Kimberly Thomson discovered how much government runs on relationships.

The Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Health Sciences at Simon Fraser University and member of the Children’s Health Policy Centre was attending a two-day session at the legislature as part of a Science Meets Parliament event in April.

With the goal of improving conversation between policymakers and scientists, the Science Meets Parliament organizers had arranged for Thomson and the other delegates, including several members of SFU’s Faculty of Health Sciences, to meet with MLAs and government staff.

As part of the experience, all delegates met with Raj Chouhan, the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly, and with Lieutenant Governor Janet Austin. Thomson also met with BC Green Party representatives, including Party Leader Sonia Furstenau, and with NDP MLA Dan Coulter, the Minister of State for Infrastructure and Transit. Despite working in different fields, Thomson and the MLAs she met with discovered several points of connection, including shared interests in child rights, diversity and inclusion, and youth justice. These conversations helped Thomson better understand how policymakers set their agendas.

“It was really beneficial to spend the day immersed in their world and understand what their priorities are, the considerations that they are juggling when making different policies,” Thomson said.

“Research is important for policy making, but it’s only one part. Your researcher brain says that if you just construct the best possible evidence and present it to them, they’ll make the decision based on that. But that’s not entirely how it works. At the end of the day, policymakers want to make the best decisions for people living in BC and there are a number of factors to consider.”

For Thomson, this experience also highlighted the importance of the work the Children’s Health Policy Centre does to share its research with policymakers.

“Building connections with policymakers allows you to be part of their process so they might call on you for advice,” she said. “This experience made me respect and appreciate the time and effort that goes into building these relationships and how special it is that the Centre has these relationships.”

Thomson spent the rest of the program attending Question Period, listening to panel discussions with legislators, and networking with the 30 other Science Meets Parliament delegates from universities across BC. She left the legislature with several new connections and a stronger sense of how she could support policy decisions through her work.

“I would absolutely recommend it [Science Meets Parliament] to other researchers,” Thomson said. “This was an invaluable experience to better understand the roles and responsibilities of policy makers, their priorities, and how science can best support decision-making.”

Science Meets Parliament is hosted by the Canadian Science Policy Centre, a non-profit organization dedicated to building a strong and inclusive science policy community in Canada. Since 2018, the annual event has brought emerging science leaders to Parliament Hill in an effort to strengthen the connection between Canada’s scientific and political communities. The Science Meets Parliament BC program was the event’s first expansion into a provincial legislature.

Centre Director Charlotte Waddell gave a virtual talk about a Nuu-chah-nulth-led study on healthy child development to the child health advisory board at the Canadian Institutes of Health Research on April 10.

The talk was titled, “Everything is One, Everything is Connected.”

Waddell presented together with SFU scholar Pablo Nepomnaschy, on behalf of Lynnette Lucas and the Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council team, the study leads.

The presentation described a multi-generational study being conducted by and within the 14 Nuu-chah-nulth Nations, whose ancestral lands are located on the west coast of Vancouver Island.

“As non-Indigenous research allies,” Waddell said, “team members from SFU are helping to merge the best of Indigenous and ‘Western’ science while upholding high ethical standards including ensuring Indigenous data sovereignty.”

“This study will be ‘the Framingham’ of Indigenous Peoples,” Waddell added, quoting Indigenous scholar Jeff Reading, who is co-leading the Nuu-chah-nulth project. Framingham refers to a famous long-term cardiovascular health study that began in 1948 and is now on its third generation of participants, helping to improve population wellbeing.

Funding and community consultations for the Nuu-chah-nulth project began in 2017 and continued in 2022 with a grant of $15 million over six years from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, in partnership with Alberta First Nations.

“Everything we do,” Waddell said, “involves constant reciprocity and respect for Indigenous Knowledge and wishes.

“We are working to overcome some of the harmful legacies of colonialism by supporting Indigenous leadership of research that is by and about them, as one step towards truth and reconciliation.”

Centre Director Charlotte Waddell gave a Zoom talk to close to 300 parents, practitioners and policy makers on Dec. 2. The talk was titled, “Neurodiversity and mental health: Serving children better.”

The presentation covered the following themes:

• The need to create communities where all children are welcomed and celebrated, and where services are delivered according to needs so that all children can flourish and meet their potential.
• The prevalence of anxiety, ADHD, behaviour disorders and depression, which are higher for children experiencing three particular forms of neurodiversity (autism spectrum disorder, fetal alcohol syndrome disorder and intellectual disability).
• The research evidence for effective treatments for these four conditions for children with the three forms of neurodiversity.
• The effective treatments for other common childhood mental disorders that can also be offered, with adaptations when needed

“We need to ensure that timely and effective treatments are offered to all children, particularly if they are neurodiverse, given higher prevalence rates,” Waddell told the group.

The talk ended with celebrating people who are neurodiverse, and the communities that support them over the lifespan.

Waddell then stayed on the Zoom call to respond to questions and comments. She also joined a small breakout group discussion to learn more about parent’s perspectives.

A recording of the talk can be seen here.