Reflecting on the Mental Health Research Symposium and Art & Inquiry Soiree

The Community Research Platform (CRP) is delighted to share our experiences supporting the recent community-engaged Mental Health Research Symposium: Building a Community of Practice, led by McMaster’s Centre for Advanced Research on Mental Health and Society (ARMS) and The Art and Inquiry Soiree hosted by the Canadian Mental Health Association, Hamilton (CMHA).

The May 1-2nd event aimed to bridge the gap between mental health research and practice. The research symposium, hosted at McMaster’s Alumni Hall, brought together 50 researchers, students and community stakeholders and included a variety of panels, lighting talks, and poster presentations.

The event opened with a keynote address from Dr. Ingrid Waldron, Professor and HOPE Chair in Peace and Health in the Global Peace and Social Justice Program at McMaster. Waldron shared her extensive experience conducting community-engaged research with Black, Indigenous, and other racialized communities in Nova Scotia and Ontario. She emphasized building sincere and trusting relationships with communities and fostering robust and impactful research partnerships and projects.

Following the keynote, attendees heard about how community engaged mental health research gets conceptualized, implemented, translated and mobilized. The presentations and panels invited audience openness to comment, question and challenge the existing approaches to community-engaged research. Some examples of topics addressed included: how to build trust and equitable partnerships between researchers, organizations and participants; how to ethically and compassionately engage people with lived/living experience of mental health issues; bridging academic and community priorities and timelines for research projects; how to leverage research evidence to impact policy; challenges with accessing funding to support community identified research priorities; students roles and training in community engaged mental health research. Attendees left with new knowledge, insights, and connections to further advance community engaged mental health research.

The Art & Inquiry Soiree

On the evening of May 1^st, this event brought together over 100 researchers, students, mental health workers and community members to enjoy an evening of art, research and lively discussion related to mental health. CMHA Hamilton’s CEO Sue Phipps delivered a keynote where she discussed the benefits that CMHA has experienced because of partnering with McMaster to develop the Community Research Platform (CRP) and how building this collaborative platform led to a fruitful partnership with ARMS and ten successful collaborative mental health research projects. Sue noted that the research which came to CMHA in the past often did not meet the organization’s needs. Due to the CRP, staff from across the organization frequently seek to engage in research to support programs and service improvement for their clients. Sue also highlighted the reciprocal nature of research partnerships and the intentional engagement of people with lived/living experiences of mental health challenges. Sue then switched gears to focus on the role of art in mental health. She thanked the more than 50 artists, including students, community members and community groups, who submitted their work, inspired by their mental health journeys, to display for the Soiree and CMHA Mental Health Week.

 “Art is the creation of forms symbolic of human feeling.” – Susanne Langer

Many thanks to all who participated in the symposium, those who submitted art pieces and for co-creating meaningful contributions to community-engaged mental health research.

This event was led by McMaster University’s Centre for Advanced Research on Mental Health & Society (ARMS) and the Canadian Mental Health Association, Hamilton (CMHA) in collaboration with the Community Research Platform (CRP), Hamilton Public Library (HPL), Burlington Public Library (BPL) and with support from McMaster Institute for Health & Equity (MIHE) and the McMaster Museum of Art (MMA).