Brain Health
N’Mninoeyaa Aboriginal Health Access Centre Disabilities Project
This project breaks down barriers that discourage individuals living with disabilities and their families from accessing appropriate services and assists them in identifying available resources (funded by Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada’s Disabilities Initiative). Situated along the north shore of Lake Huron between Sudbury and Sault Ste. Marie, this project included the seven member First Nation communities of Batchewana, Garden River, Thessalon, Mississauga, Serpent River, Sagamok and Atikameksheng and the off reserve Aboriginal population residing in the city of Sault Ste. Marie. The developmental evaluation of the Disabilities Project sought to determine effective community engagement strategies to ensure that the appropriate individuals in the community and externally were being engaged.
Funder: Ontario Brain Institute
Period of Grant: January 2016-December 2016
Three To Be’s PAL Pathway Toolkit
This project provides families with the immediate support, key information and resources to help them determine what to do next after receiving their child’s diagnosis of a neurological disorder. The evaluation of the toolkit focused on both the impacts and relevance of the toolkit on the families who received it.
Funder: Ontario Brain Institute
Period of Grant: January 2016-December 2016
Suvien
Suvien is a free app for people with Alzheimer’s/dementia that allows family members to upload photos, music and videos that are of interest to the person with dementia through a highly-tailored, user-friendly interface on an iPad or Android tablet. Suvien’s goals are to provide familiarity and comfort to the person with dementia by drawing out memories from their own life history, as well as equipping caregivers with a vehicle for providing more personal care. The evaluation sought to identify barriers to uptake and possible solutions in order that Suvien could become a “standard use” or “standard issue” tool for people with Alzheimer’s/dementia and their caregivers. This developmental evaluation sought to help with the challenges of implementation – namely, rollout, advertising, building partnerships for spread and sustainability, provision of the app and iPads/tablets widely, and further improvements for accessibility.
Funder: Ontario Brain Institute
Period of Grant: January 2016-December 2016
Epilepsy Toronto
Epilepsy Toronto offers counseling, support groups, education, employment assistance, public education and advocacy to individuals and families affected by epilepsy. As a core service of the agency, counseling is provided by social work professionals face-to-face with individuals, families, and groups, and, at times, by phone. The goal of counseling is to alleviate crises, develop coping strategies for living well with epilepsy, and foster social and emotional well-being. The evaluation team provided consultation to Epilepsy Toronto on what and how to measure the impact of their counseling services for adults, developed data collection protocols, a theory of change for the whole organization with a nested theory of change for its counseling services, and a table of literature review findings relevant to counseling specifically for epilepsy, self-management and wellbeing.
Funder: Ontario Brain Institute
Period of Grant: January 2016-December 2016