About CanChild
CanChild's foundation is built on the following five core functions:
Take a leadership role in identifying emerging issues in research, practice, policy, and education.
Conduct high-quality, innovative research that gives children and youth increased opportunities to thrive at home, at school, and in the community.
Effectively transfer the knowledge generated by our evidence-based research into practice at the clinical and health systems levels.
Educate the families and health care providers and share research findings to those who need it the most.
Mentor students, post-doctoral fellows, junior researchers, and experts to build capacity for future researchers around the world.
Our Research
The overarching goal of CanChild is to maximize the quality of life and participation of children and youth with a variety of developmental conditions, along with their families, through evidence-based clinical and health services research.
CanChild’s research is about how children with a variety of developmental conditions develop, how to identify children and families at risk based on their needs, and how to best support these children over the lifecourse, in particular during health services transition points such as from hospital to home, from preschool to school and from child health services to adult services. At CanChild, our research measures and evaluates the processes of novel ways of health care delivery and its outcomes to ensure children and families do better of the lifecourse (best health, best care experiences, to the best cost).
Browse our Current Studies page to learn more about our most recent work or explore our Resources section to discover the amazing archive that our past work has generated.
Our Structure
CanChild has a succinct organizational structure. The centre is led by a Director who reports to Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences through the Associate Dean of the School of Rehabilitation Science at McMaster University. CanChild is also supported by two groups that advise on strategic matters: the Scientific Advisory Committee and the Advisory Board.
The Scientific Advisory Committee is composed of a core group of Scientists from within the Faculty of Health Sciences at McMaster University. The committee advises on the overall research objectives of CanChild and oversees its contribution and engagement in the world of academic research.
The Advisory Board is composed of leaders from the community and fundraising specialists that are external from CanChild. In 2015, we welcomed a parent Board members as well as young adult with a disability to represent the voice of families and youth. The board is charged with providing insights and guidance based on their expertise to ensure continued financial sustainability and ensuring what we do is meaningful to the local community and society at large.
Strategic Plan 2020-2025
The five-year CanChild Strategic Plan reflects our hopes for the future state of CanChild: a centre with a shared purpose, where innovative and impactful child health research is at the heart of what we do, and a centre that is recognized internationally for an environment that cultivates diversity and inclusion, collaboration and partnerships.
Our Successes & Productivity
CanChild has been pleased to demonstrate the innovation and productivity of the evidence-based clinical and health services research it funds. The following Annual Reports reflect the research activities and successes of CanChild's research team for the years identified: