HEAL - Hubs of Expressive Arts for Life to Prevent and Address Family Violence
Access Alliance Multicultural Health and Community Services (Access Alliance) will work with peer researchers, community members as well as academic and community organization partners (project team) to implement HEAL, an inter-sectoral, creative, culturally safe, multi-pronged capacity enriching project. This co-design, mixed method, community-based participation action research is focused on vulnerable newcomer populations who are survivors or at risk of, domestic violence in the City of Toronto.
Expressive Arts Health Promotion Case Study: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CP9ggpZtlc&t=16s
Community of Practice members:
Dr. Akm Alamgir
Akm Alamgir earned a Ph.D. degree in evaluation, a Master's degree in epidemiology, and a Bachelor's in medicine. He is the Director of Knowledge & Learning at Access Alliance (Toronto), an Adjunct Professor at York University (Toronto), and an Academic Editor of the scientific journal PLOS One. He is a mixed-method community-based researcher on social determinants of health in Canada (ORCID #0000-0003-4804-6609). He generates knowledge, creates learning materials, and builds the capacity of the stakeholders. He is the principal investigator of funded research projects on refugees, youth, mental health, and gender-based domestic violence. He is part of preparing the Canadian national standards in Youth Mental Health and Addictions Navigation Services. He is an “expert reviewer” of the Canadian government for the New Frontiers in Research Fund Transformation Competition (NFRFT 2022) applications. He reviews manuscripts submitted to the Journal of International Migration and Integration, PLOS One, and Health Promotion International.
Christen Kong
Christen Kong earned a Master of Social Work specialization in Human Service Management and Leadership and is a Registered Social Worker (843177). She is a Health Promoter at Access Alliance focusing on art-based practices and activities to improve the health outcomes of newcomer populationsin Toronto. She is the project coordinator for Hubs of Expressive Arts for Life –HEAL Project, a multi-year intersectoral implementation communitybased participatory research study on newcomer women survivors of domestic based violence. She is a member of multiple working groups and advisory committees to further the work of women against gender based violence. She is a placement supervisorand has been a field instructor for students in a variety of disciplines including students from Health in Community, Public Policy, Human Biology and Master of Social Work departments from different universities in Toronto.
