CMS-Sector Research Collaborations Day 2025

This panel brings together community, clinical, and academic perspectives on undocumented migration, connecting local realities in British Columbia with broader global pathways. Panelists will share their experiences and insights on the challenges faced by undocumented people, and on the responses developed through advocacy, health care, and research.

The panelists will share insights from the Sanctuary City/Access Without Fear movement and grassroots advocacy for undocumented communities; experiences from clinical service delivery to undocumented people in Vancouver’s Lower mainland in addressing barriers and care strategies; and how to design and approach research related to undocumented and out-of-status migrants in Canada coming from diverse global pathways.

The discussion will also reflect on the critical ethical aspects around recurring questions—e.g., “How many undocumented migrants are there in BC/Canada?”—with an emphasis on the safety considerations involved in conducting community-based research with undocumented populations.

CMS will present an update on the development of the new ‘Engagement in Practice’ webpage, a platform to bring CMS affiliates and community organizations together to move research collaborations from the understanding of principles and guidelines into actual practice. The site will feature tools and information on 4 critical areas: Mutual Understanding, Research Connections, Capacity Building, and Funding Information.

This session will explore how migration research can either re-create colonial harm or contribute to healing. Participants will examine real or planned research projects through guiding questions, such as: Who asks the questions? Who legitimizes the knowledge? Who benefits and who is harmed? Together, we will identify concrete actions to embed decolonizing practices into migration research projects, with emphasis on accountability, positionality, and moving from intention to implementation.

Best suited for: People seeking to critically assess their own research practices, proposals, or collaborations and to take away practical tools for change, including:

• Researchers (academic or community-based) working on migration and settlement,
• Students, postdoctoral research fellows, and faculty designing or conducting research projects,
• Sector partners commissioning or collaborating on research,
•  Anyone interested in how research methods and ethics can dismantle — or reproduce — colonial logics.
  

Decolonizing research also involves processes of organizational self-transformation within the institutions that fund, govern, host, and implement it. This workshop provides a hands-on demonstration of how organizations can move beyond fragmented individual efforts and intentions toward a unified decolonial practice. Participants will examine power structures and practices that sustain colonial dynamics and work with tools for collective reflection and action. Central to the session is the guiding question: What does decolonization require from our organization, given our positionality? Practical strategies for structural change, accountability, and building genuine relationships — both internally and with Indigenous and migrant communities — will be shared.

Best suited for: People directly involved in organizational governance: those holding positions of authority and decision-making. Also for staff roles seeking to lead or deepen organizational decolonization. This includes:

• Members of Governing Boards and Committees, CEOs, Executive Directors, Program Directors, and senior managers,
• Staff or teams tasked with, or interested in, leading decolonization initiatives,
• Community organizers and partners in organizational change,
• Anyone interested in moving from individual understandings toward organizational practice.
  

Evaluation is more than a requirement for funding or an academic exercise; it's a dynamic, real-world process that shapes and is shaped by the people, relationships, and systems involved. When done thoughtfully, evaluation becomes a powerful tool for navigating complexity, enhancing partnerships, and improving both research projects and settlement programs. This workshop will explore evaluation as a practical, political, and relational process in which accountability is key. Together, we’ll move beyond seeing evaluation as just a reporting mechanism and explore its potential to support continuous learning, program improvement, more equitable community-university collaborations and benefits for the people impacted by research and programs. 

We encourage you to bring a project you’re currently working on, or imagine one, to use during the activities (a community research project, a program for newcomers, or any initiative involving collaboration and impact).

Best suited for: Anyone involved in or interested in community-based research projects and the use of data for program design and delivery, community-university relationships, and/or settlement and newcomer programs—including practitioners, researchers, students, community partners, and funders. No prior evaluation experience is necessary.

Ingrid Méndez is the Executive Director of the Migrant Workers Centre. Originally from Guatemala—the Place of Many Trees—she brings decades of experience in grassroots community development and social justice advocacy. She previously served as Executive Director of Watari Counselling and Support Services and has long been active with the Sanctuary Health Collective, advancing the rights of migrant communities in the Lower Mainland.

Dr. Mei-ling Wiedmeyer is a family physician and Clinical Assistant Professor in UBC’s Department of Family Practice. She provides primary care to refugees, immigrants, and migrants at the Umbrella Multicultural Health Co-op, which uses a team-based model with Cross Cultural Health Brokers. She co-leads the Evaluating Inequities in Refugee & Immigrants’ Health Access (IRIS) Project, a community-based study examining healthcare access for refugees and im/migrants in British Columbia.

Dr. Caitlyn Yates is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at CMS. She is migration researcher and policy expert specializing in Latin America and the Caribbean. Her work focuses on mobility, transit, border enforcement, and Western Hemispheric migration policy. Her current book project, Undeportable, explores the journeys of migrants from Africa and Asia who travel through Latin America en route to Canada and the United States.

Mothers Matter Canada (MMC) supports partner organizations in implementing the HIPPY and SMART programs for refugee, immigrant, and Indigenous mothers. These programs chart pathways to inclusion by building confidence, capacity, and community connections of isolated and often low-income mothers and their children. This presentation highlights three themes: a) what kinds of data are most useful for service-providing organizations, b) how MMC analyzes and applies this data to improve programs, and c) why evidence-based approaches are central to delivering human-centred and culturally responsive services. The presentation will share what data that drives program impact and lasting change for families should look like.

Yusra Qadir is Chief Programs and Advocacy Officer at Mothers Matter Canada (MMC). She holds Masters degrees in Sociology and Human Rights Practice and brings senior-level expertise in gender equality, human rights, and socio-economic inclusion. She has supported forcibly displaced communities in Asia, Africa, and South America through her work at the United Nations and at other international NGOs, embedding gender equity in humanitarian and development programs. At MMC, she oversees programming for 40+ organizations delivering the HIPPY and SMART programs to refugee, immigrant, and Indigenous mothers across Canada. She also spearheads a social innovation lab that experiments with evidence-based and community-led approaches to scale human-centred, culturally responsive service delivery models across Canada.

The COVID-19 pandemic brought societal transformations, including an increase in platform-based jobs, creating new challenges and opportunities for immigrant workers. My project explores how the transformation of workplaces is shaping immigrants’ experiences of economic and social inclusion in Canadian society. We completed interviews with 50 immigrant workers employed in forms of gig and/or remote/hybrid work. Findings address 3 key themes reflecting participants’ 1) perceived shifting value of their work within the economy, 2) experience of (in)flexibility and (im)balance across their occupations, including the “re-bordering” of their home and work spaces, and 3) sense of isolation impacting their socialization and belonging.

Dr. Suzanne Huot is an Associate Professor in the Department of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy at UBC. My research primarily explores migrants’ experiences in Canada at the local scale through community-engaged research. I primarily focus on the implications of Francophone immigration policies for French-speaking communities outside of Quebec. My work aims to enhance the inclusivity of community spaces for newcomers.

Declining mental health among youth since the COVID-19 pandemic has been a concern, but is it getting similarly worse or better for migrant adolescents? This presentation will explore trends in several mental health indicators among migrant boys and girls in BC over the past 20 years, identifying areas of improvement and where gaps persist compared to peers born in Canada. Findings include trends in self-rated mental health, extreme stress and hopelessness, as well as past-year health behaviours such as self-harm, suicidal thoughts and attempts. We will also share insights and recommendations from a youth advisor to improve mental health.

Dr. Elizabeth Saewyc is the Director of the Stigma and Resilience Among Vulnerable Youth Centre, a multidisciplinary research hub with national and global collaborations. Her research examines how stigma, violence, and trauma affect marginalized youth and what factors promote resilience and health equity. She focuses on 2SLGBTQ+, Indigenous, racialized, homeless, and migrant youth, including those experiencing government care or sexual exploitation. As part of the Bridging Divides collaboration, her team also studies how digital technologies can support migrant health and well-being.

Javier Ojer is an immigrant settler of Basque ethnicity with a Spanish colonial background, among other privileges. As the Engagement Strategist at the UBC Centre for Migration Studies, he focuses on building relationships and initiatives that address the intersections and contradictions of settlement and decolonization. His interests include inquiring about and looking at appropriate roles of settler-colonial individuals and institutions in relation to unceded territories, the land itself, and the experiences of Indigenous Peoples and Nations with ongoing colonialism. He supports CMS’s efforts to create inclusive research spaces that integrate diverse tools and methodologies—such as art and storytelling—as legitimate ways of producing, validating and mobilizing knowledge.

Norm Leech is a member of the T’it’q’et community of the St’at’imc Nation. He is the Executive Director of Frog Hollow Neighbourhood House in East Vancouver. He speaks widely on intergenerational trauma from colonization and draws on his experiences as a recovering addict, survivor, and spiritual explorer to guide his leadership and community work.

Atlanta-Marina Grant is a Community Engagement Specialist and Decolonial Practitioner who graduated from the Institute of Resources, Environment, and Sustainability at UBC. Her research and professional work have focused on what safe decolonized collaborative spaces between non-Indigenous and Indigenous peoples can look like.

Dr. Hongxia Shan is an Associate Professor in the Department of Educational Studies at UBC. She studies changing work and learning practices in the context of immigration, globalization, and transnationalism. Her research spans work and learning, knowledge translation, lifelong learning, organizational learning, diversity, and migration. She employs methods that include community-based participatory research, institutional ethnography, life histories, situational analysis, and mixed-methods approaches.

Naomi Maldonado-Rodriguez is a PhD candidate in the Faculty of Education, School of Kinesiology. Her doctoral research examines how migrant women living with HIV access and navigate healthcare systems, focusing on how sociopolitical contexts, institutions, and power relations shape their experiences. More broadly, her work examines the intersection of health practices and concepts of well-being with race, gender, and migration, particularly in contexts of forced migration.