Research

A Vibrant Research Community

Diversity

Research and scholarship in the College reflects diversity in acknowledging, understanding, and respecting diversity of health care providers and clients. This diversity includes different views on health and various paths to health.

Creating Safe Environments for Children and Adolescents with Developmental Disabilities is led by Associate Professor Lee Murray and funded by the RBC Nurses for Kids program in the College of Nursing. In collaboration with Greater Saskatoon Catholic School Division, Saskatoon Sexual Assault and Information Centre, and Red Cross RespectED, the program promotes adolescents' emotional health, healthy sexuality education, rights and responsibilities, and healthy peer relationships. The program provides education, tools, and support to parents and teachers who work directly with adolescents with developmental disabilities, and includes a variety of delivery modes such as drama, puppetry, videos, interactive games/activities, and group discussion. Research is currently underway to determine how students, teachers, and parents perceive the effectiveness of the program.

Dr. Louise Racine's current study, funded by a Saskatchewan Health Research Foundation New Investigator Establishment Grant, focuses on how non-Western immigrants and refugees in Saskatchewan experience, perceive, and utilize the Saskatchewan health care system. Dr. Racine's research is founded on the principle of cultural safety. A culturally safe nursing practice takes into account cultural differences that come into play in providing nursing care; nurses examine their practice in order to provide nursing care that respects and acknowledges immigrants' and refugee's cultural differences in defining health and illness. Cultural safety underlies the need for nurses to examine their own cultural realities and the attitudes they bring to clinical practice. With the increased and diversified non-Western immigration in Saskatchewan, this study will further the training of nurses and other health professionals while enhancing the delivery of quality nursing care to these populations.