Grant: Health System Impact Fellowships - PostDoc Western Canada 2 year

The Manitoba Advocate for Children and Youth (MACY) is an independent branch of the Manitoba Legislative Assembly that represents the rights of children and youth in Manitoba, including their right to be healthy. I will work with MACY toward two of their impact goals. All work will occur in partnership with MACY's councils of Elders and diverse youth with lived experience in child-serving provincial systems, and be supported by MACY's rich team of researchers, policy analysts, and ministers. MACY's first impact goal is to conduct child-centered research to inform their recommendations to ensure child-serving provincial systems facilitate the utmost health and well-being of children and youth. To enhance capacity to reach this goal, I will provide specialized, high-level professional development to their Research and Quality Assurance Program. I will also address their goal of developing policy to end the solitary confinement of incarcerated youth in Manitoba. Placing youth in solitary confinement directly counters human and Indigenous rights and has severe impacts on health and well-being. Yet the practice occurs frequently in Manitoba's youth justice system. I will create a unique database of incarcerated youth in Manitoba who did and did not experience solitary confinement, along with indicators of their health and well-being. I will also analyze this data to determine the ways solitary confinement impacts the health and well-being of incarcerated youth in Manitoba. My research will be supported by my academic work at the University of Manitoba's Manitoba Centre for Health Policy. This work is relevant to CIHR-HSPR and -NMHA in that it will strengthen policy research capacity and inform (mental health and justice) policy to promote the health and well-being of children and youth in Manitoba. Relevant to CIHR-IIPH, it involves a respectful partnership with Indigenous Peoples to improve the health and well-being of incarcerated youth, most of whom are Indigenous.